Another unhappy Prosport customer. I took my car (09 plate 330s with 70k miles on it) to Pete as it had started smoking on startup and he'd been recommended by people on Pistonheads.
After a strip down he found a cracked ringland. So it needed a full rebuild and I decided to use forged internals, uprated studs, gaskets etc and do it properly. For a start it took him 9 months to get my car back to me. Excuse and delay after excuse and delay. But finally I got it back - £6k later. All good right? It's a great car etc, should last a long time. So I ran it in gently, as directed, for 1200 miles, then changed oil and filter. 800 miles later (2 months after the rebuild) the head gasket went. I contacted Pete - he 'suspected' a cracked head, as he said in all his 20+ years of working on Subarus, he'd never seen a head gasket go after the work I'd had done. But to complicate things, he'd sold the business mid way through doing my car, although he was apparently popping back in on weekends etc and doing the work himself. I believe he's still working in that area.
The experience of dealing with him initially was beyond frustrating and the fact that he'd sold the business meant I had the car recovered elsewhere. After the new place stripped it down, they told me the reason the head gasket went is that the studs weren't put in right. They were all different heights apparently (photos taken during dismantling) and the chap said he initially thought that 3 of them hadn't been tightened properly, as they felt like they had already been loosened. Sadly it's worse than that. When they took the studs out two of them brought the threads out of the block with them. So it seems they were cross threaded and stripped. So now I need new half blocks - and how much labour to rebuild it, never mind another gasket set, new studs etc etc.There were also various clips loose and the hose for the turbo was half folded into the pipe itself, instead of sitting nicely around the outside of it. The phrase the new chap used to describe the work that had been done on my car was 'abysmal'.Given that Pete has now sold his Subaru specialist workshop in Stockport, means I don't hold out much hope for redress. I suppose at the least heads aren't cracked or warped, but still, after spending £6k for Pete to rebuild the engine with forged internals means I really don't have funds for this. st!! I loved that car when it was running, as it's just an awesome package. But I can't keep doing this. So I'm selling it Pete told me early on, when I mentioned I'd been referred to him, that you're only as good as your last car. That's certainly true!!
I got back onto Pete and he said that while he'd personally built the short engine, he hadn't done the cylinder heads or studs etc. I pointed out that the poor quality work was still done by his team and asked what he was going to do about it. He's now ignoring all communication.
So beware - he may have built up a good rep over the years, but is seems his work standards have slipped and he no longer cares about turning out substandard work.
