Poor customer service. Poor quality. A generally incapable company with high prices. If you see positive reviews of this place it is most likely one-off occasions. Western Skyways or Carter's (in Cheyenne) is the place to take all your engine work.
While we appreciate your taking the time to share your feedback with us, there are material accusations that are simply untrue that we have a responsibility to address. You have had your case evaluated by the better business bureau, and they dismissed your perspective as to what happened.
We absolutely recognize that we did work on and shipped your plane’s engine. You, however, insisted that a third party unaffiliated (with us) install your engine. You then complained that “During the initial flight it was found that the baffling was rubbing on the ring gear. The prop. was removed to gain access to the baffling the baffling was modified to give clearance to the ring gear” 27.73 hours. This is an installation issue; NOT an overhaul issue, there are no issues with the engine, it is not running rough, it is not burning oil, it is not experiencing any issues with the work we that we performed. We, per industry standard practice, sent the engine with the rubber baffling oversized so it can be trimmed to properly fit your cowling and provide optimal cooling. So, when your shop installed the engine and failed to trim the baffling whilst then trying to shoehorn it all into the cowling, it of course caused the baffling to rub. Your installation shop failed you.
You need to stop and ask: 1. – why the shop never trimmed the baffling in the first place? 2. – how could they allow your plane to go up on the first flight if the baffling was already rubbing, did they not ground run it before the first flight and check the installation? 3. – How can they say it took them 27.73 hours to adjust the baffling around a ring gear? The entire installation (Per Lycoming’s Labor Allowance Guidebook, SSP-875, the REMOVAL AND INSTALLATION of the engine from the aircraft and then re-installed should only take 20 hours.)
Furthermore, Mr. Kramer, you have made multiple assertions that you spoke with our manager, Tom, who authorized warranty work. Not only have you not provided any paperwork to prove this, the manager you claim to have spoken to had passed away (May 2019) almost two and a half months before your correspondence with us and before you even received the invoice from your maintenance shop (which was dated July 25th, 2019). Additionally, your follow up email in February 2020 which you say “Has this warranty work been processed yet? It’s been about 6 or 7 weeks now". which is impossible! Since the manager (Tom) had now passed away nearly 10 months earlier.
We never like when clients are dissatisfied, and always do everything we can to correct any issues on the very rare occasion they occur. That being said, we cannot and will not accept responsibility for issues that are not only another shops fault, but that are attempted to be backed by materially false accusations of promises or commitments.
We wish you the best moving forward.
Sincerely,
Jerry Doyle General Manager The New Firewall Forward
They’re doing a full restoration on my A65 and so far I couldn’t be happier. All of the parts they’ve done have come back perfect. Frank has great attention to detail, very high standards and stays involved with the project every step of the way. The prices are fair.
If you want a shop that honors their warranty then run as fast as you can from this shop. We had two continental 360 EB's overhauled at their shop with several warranty repairs that they never reimbursed us for even though we have multiple emails from their manager promising reimbursement, needless to say we never received reimbursement even though they kept promising to reimburse us for the warranty repair work. We considered filing a lawsuit but the problem is being out of town it would have cost us more for the legal assistance than what the warranty work reimbursement amount was and they knew that, bottom line is they will not honor their warranty it's worthless.
As the new owners of a older cessna turbo 182rg , which we got with a run out engine, we spent a while looking at different shops for the rebuild project.
Our first instinct was to use a local shop, so that we could check on the progress of the work. We met with and talk to quite a few places across Southern California. We also thought about doing an engine exchange and having our local shop install it.
Knowing that our plane sat for a long time before we bought it, we were worried about the gremlins they could be hiding in the project.
At the end of the day we selected Frank and Tom from the new firewall forward because of their expertise and their commitment to quality. We spent a lot of time on the phone with them talking through the details especially in light of the mixed reviews they'd had in the past.
Tom came and ferried the plane back to Colorado to their shop, and they did all the work. Originally the project was scheduled for 6 to 8 weeks, knowing that every project have some uncertainty. In the end it took 8 weeks plus another week to schedule time to get it the plane back to Los Angeles. We also ended up having to redo the exhaust system which was rusted out. Tom and Frank sent it out to the shop to get done at cost. We also had them install a JPI 900, which is been very helpful both for the break-in of the engine as well at the monitor overall performance.
First impressions were great (and continue). Tom flew the plane out to our hangar, since we didn’t have time to go pick it up. Then he walked us through everything they did, the functioning of the JPI, and took us up for a couple test flights together. The engine looked like it was brand new, painted, all the cables and wires perfectly tied down.
We have flown about 150 hours since the New firewall forward rebuilt our engine. Compressions have been very strong across the board. Temps have been quite even (~50 degrees). Engine starts every time without any problems (thanks to the new starter they recommended and put in). We’ve called them a few times with questions and they’ve always been quick to answer. We had one problem with a bad wiring harness from JPI which was hard to troubleshoot. They worked with our local shop to figure out what was wrong and coordinate with JPI for a warranty replacement. The engine burns less than ½ quart every 25 hours (our conservative oil change interval).
The final bill was what they quoted us, plus the exhaust and a new ELT that we needed to install. Timeline was on par with the original estimates, despite some extra work.
We couldn’t be happier with the project, how it went, or how Frank and Tom took care of us. They took a beating from some previous customers who didn’t have the same experience we did, and they are making sure it doesn’t happen again. If someone has questions about the quality of service at The New Firewall Forward, we’d be happy to share our experience.
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