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- City
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- 2022 Toyota Supra 3.0 Premium A91
Sit back and grab some popcorn for this one because I'm going into every single detail of where this shop goes wrong. Please thoroughly read this review before you even consider bringing your expensive ride here. I am a proud owner of a 2022 Toyota Supra GR 3.0 Premium which I purchased brand new a little over a year ago. I discovered Kinetic for my basic bolt-on needs which at the time did a decent job and in fact, I was recommending them all over the place to my friends. I have sent many referrals during this past year due to my initial positive experience. However, when the jobs became more complex than just bolting on an exhaust, downpipe, intake and JB4 that’s where things started to go deeply wrong. I purchased the CSF full 6 in one cooling kit (including the intake manifold) a $6,000 cooling system for my car. The whole purpose was because I was planning to go with a bigger turbo in the future. Along with that I purchased a charge pipe from kinetic to have that installed as well along with my wheels, brakes, and a stud conversion kit. Well, I went to pick up the car and I as so excited because I saw my wheels on and my new brakes done as soon as I pulled up. I grabbed all my parts from Kinetic thinking everything is ready to go and assuming it’s all installed correctly. After driving around for a little bit, I had noticed the car was very difficult to get into boost almost as if there was a boost leak or maybe just because the car had not been tuned yet. I went to my tuner and while on his dyno we discovered the charge pipe was hanging off it’s clamp after a few hours of fooling with the car to try to figure out why it wasn’t making boost. Secondly, we noticed the car kept getting very hot when pushing the gas continuously. Again, as mentioned above I purchased a $6,000 cooling kit to run better than the factory system when pushing the car to keep it cool. Funny thing is that my tuner wasn’t even pushing the car when it started to run very hot.
We later found out that there was so much air in the system. Sean over at Kinetic was immediately in denial of any incorrect installation or mistake that may have been done while installing my parts. I then showed up at his shop and showed him the video of the charge pipe hanging loose. He then admitted his technician could have made a mistake and apologized to me. He told me it wouldn’t happen again and said that he properly bled my cooling system which we knew didn’t happened because it was flowing full of air bubbles when we opened it. So, I forgave Sean and said mistakes happen that it wasn’t a problem, and I would be willing to give your shop one more chance to make sure they would do the next job correctly. Well, sure enough they managed to make mistakes again except this time around much worse and for the last 5 weeks I have been chasing drivetrain codes and mechanical problems on my car since they last touched the car. I will be posting photos of course that explain some of what I have been experiencing but I will also give a summary here as well.
So to begin, I had Kinetic install a pure 850, port injection on my CSF manifold, Visconti low pressure fuel pump kit, NGK spark plugs and 5ive performance reflex plug-n-play wiring kit. I also had them install an eventuri intake as well. All top-quality parts brand new in box and dropped off unopened from me to their shop. They inspected the parts, never told me anything was wrong with any of the parts and continued with the installation. They kept my car for an extra day to make sure everything was done correctly and when I showed up I was able to flash my reflex box and get the proper firmware onto it before driving away. Everything seemed to be okay and of course I did not push the car because it had not yet been tuned. The next day I drove the car over to my tuner and hopped on the dyno so they could inspect everything and start tuning. After twelve hours, let me repeat myself, TWELVE hours we finally uncover that of course, once again it is a mechanical problem. The waste gate would not go into it’s proper closed position. It was working perfectly fine before the upgraded turbo install. I called kinetic immediately the next day in shock of why my waste gate actuator is all of the sudden failing since they touched the car. He comment was that they don’t touch the waste gate and it’s a pure problem or manufacturing flaw etc. of course in denial of any mistake or incorrect install just like before. He gave me a rough tone and pretty much told me that if I wanted them to look at the car it would have to be the following week. I tried to reach out to Sean with facebook messages but got no response.
Once again, here we were back to square one with mechanical issues coming out of their shop. So during that weak I had another shop look at the waste gate and discovered that it was off by 4mm. I ended up purchasing a new waste gate actuator and that seemed to have solved the waste gate closed position problem. I then was followed by a slew of drivetrain codes almost day after day with other issues my car’s computer continued to detect every time the car tried to make boost. I now at this point had thankfully found a certified master technician with years of dealership and performance experience to uncover the rest of what the codes were guiding us to. We found the following. The spark plugs that were installed were not gapped correctly. Initial coil #4 had failed at only 28,000 miles possibly along with others but that was the only one that threw a code stopping the car from making power. We also discovered that when I pump gas, I can only fill up a ½ gallon at a time and then it would click and stop as if the tank were full. Literally, every time I pump gas at any gas station. The cooling system has a ton of air in it again causing my car to run very hot. The same issue as mentioned before. Some of my wiring was pushing up against the charge pipe starting to cause short circuit issues and melt.
Finally, yesterday after running the service cycle on my car to try to eliminate the air from my cooling system I found a fuel leak from the high-pressure fuel pump to the reflex ethanol sensor. It has been literally dripping onto my intake manifold without me noticing until now. I don’t know for how long, but I am thanking God, I found it in time before this could have led to something catastrophic. At this point I believe it is very clear there was blatant negligence, lack of experience, poor unsupervised workmanship and disregard for my hard-earned money and time that went into modifying this car. I have recently spoken with the owner Sean who says that he is willing to attempt to fix the shop’s mistakes. However, I do not trust Kinetic nor will I ever let them touch my car in this lifetime due to the potential life threatening hazards that were already caused by their poor installation job. This is the most fouled up job I have every seen from a shop on a brand new car. I have plenty more documentation and findings I’m most certain of as we continue to search the car for incorrectly installed parts. Please see the attached photos for evidence of my findings. I certainly hope you give some deep thought before taking your car here for any work and please speak to the car community first to hear other’s experiences as well.
I am not the only person that has been treated like this as I have heard many other similar stories as well. It’s just that I am one of few willing to come forward and speak out as our voices should be heard. This shop is charging people $150 an hour for a premium shop labor rate and providing half ass work. Do not let their marketing fool you. This is what is really going on here and it’s a shame because this is why shops lose their reputation and their customers. Good luck to Kinetic as I will be pursuing legal action following up with my reviews as well.
We later found out that there was so much air in the system. Sean over at Kinetic was immediately in denial of any incorrect installation or mistake that may have been done while installing my parts. I then showed up at his shop and showed him the video of the charge pipe hanging loose. He then admitted his technician could have made a mistake and apologized to me. He told me it wouldn’t happen again and said that he properly bled my cooling system which we knew didn’t happened because it was flowing full of air bubbles when we opened it. So, I forgave Sean and said mistakes happen that it wasn’t a problem, and I would be willing to give your shop one more chance to make sure they would do the next job correctly. Well, sure enough they managed to make mistakes again except this time around much worse and for the last 5 weeks I have been chasing drivetrain codes and mechanical problems on my car since they last touched the car. I will be posting photos of course that explain some of what I have been experiencing but I will also give a summary here as well.
So to begin, I had Kinetic install a pure 850, port injection on my CSF manifold, Visconti low pressure fuel pump kit, NGK spark plugs and 5ive performance reflex plug-n-play wiring kit. I also had them install an eventuri intake as well. All top-quality parts brand new in box and dropped off unopened from me to their shop. They inspected the parts, never told me anything was wrong with any of the parts and continued with the installation. They kept my car for an extra day to make sure everything was done correctly and when I showed up I was able to flash my reflex box and get the proper firmware onto it before driving away. Everything seemed to be okay and of course I did not push the car because it had not yet been tuned. The next day I drove the car over to my tuner and hopped on the dyno so they could inspect everything and start tuning. After twelve hours, let me repeat myself, TWELVE hours we finally uncover that of course, once again it is a mechanical problem. The waste gate would not go into it’s proper closed position. It was working perfectly fine before the upgraded turbo install. I called kinetic immediately the next day in shock of why my waste gate actuator is all of the sudden failing since they touched the car. He comment was that they don’t touch the waste gate and it’s a pure problem or manufacturing flaw etc. of course in denial of any mistake or incorrect install just like before. He gave me a rough tone and pretty much told me that if I wanted them to look at the car it would have to be the following week. I tried to reach out to Sean with facebook messages but got no response.
Once again, here we were back to square one with mechanical issues coming out of their shop. So during that weak I had another shop look at the waste gate and discovered that it was off by 4mm. I ended up purchasing a new waste gate actuator and that seemed to have solved the waste gate closed position problem. I then was followed by a slew of drivetrain codes almost day after day with other issues my car’s computer continued to detect every time the car tried to make boost. I now at this point had thankfully found a certified master technician with years of dealership and performance experience to uncover the rest of what the codes were guiding us to. We found the following. The spark plugs that were installed were not gapped correctly. Initial coil #4 had failed at only 28,000 miles possibly along with others but that was the only one that threw a code stopping the car from making power. We also discovered that when I pump gas, I can only fill up a ½ gallon at a time and then it would click and stop as if the tank were full. Literally, every time I pump gas at any gas station. The cooling system has a ton of air in it again causing my car to run very hot. The same issue as mentioned before. Some of my wiring was pushing up against the charge pipe starting to cause short circuit issues and melt.
Finally, yesterday after running the service cycle on my car to try to eliminate the air from my cooling system I found a fuel leak from the high-pressure fuel pump to the reflex ethanol sensor. It has been literally dripping onto my intake manifold without me noticing until now. I don’t know for how long, but I am thanking God, I found it in time before this could have led to something catastrophic. At this point I believe it is very clear there was blatant negligence, lack of experience, poor unsupervised workmanship and disregard for my hard-earned money and time that went into modifying this car. I have recently spoken with the owner Sean who says that he is willing to attempt to fix the shop’s mistakes. However, I do not trust Kinetic nor will I ever let them touch my car in this lifetime due to the potential life threatening hazards that were already caused by their poor installation job. This is the most fouled up job I have every seen from a shop on a brand new car. I have plenty more documentation and findings I’m most certain of as we continue to search the car for incorrectly installed parts. Please see the attached photos for evidence of my findings. I certainly hope you give some deep thought before taking your car here for any work and please speak to the car community first to hear other’s experiences as well.
I am not the only person that has been treated like this as I have heard many other similar stories as well. It’s just that I am one of few willing to come forward and speak out as our voices should be heard. This shop is charging people $150 an hour for a premium shop labor rate and providing half ass work. Do not let their marketing fool you. This is what is really going on here and it’s a shame because this is why shops lose their reputation and their customers. Good luck to Kinetic as I will be pursuing legal action following up with my reviews as well.
