To give you a summary, this is bad feedback review for 7Readie7 (Josh).
I will write as many details as possible.
I bought from 7Readie7 a gearbox around 26 of April. You can find the topic of the sale
here.
In the private messages we exchanged he advertised it this way:
The gearbox was rebuilt by J. Daines one of the best people around in the trade!
They were all brand new bits used. And gearbox is still running how it would come out of the factory. I have a 3 inch folder full
Of receipts in my house I'm sure the proof is in there and ill try dig the receipt out for proof and peace of mind for you!
I live in Athens, Greece, so I tried to be as careful as possible with this buy.
I sent a mate to check it, who lives in the same town (Norwich). Mainly, to see if it has the LSD and that it exists in reality and not only in pictures as no other testing could be done as the gearbox was not installed to a car.
I prefered to buy this from UK instead of a similar box from Greece because these are rare here. Whatever I found either had a lot of miles or it was too expensive. The good reputation and the comments in the ad did the trick for me... (unfortuantely).
My mate paid Josh in cash and left with it.
At those meetings Josh reported that he "could not find" the receipts for the gearbox rebuild, so I have no proof that J. Daines was indeed the one who repaired it, or exactly what had been done to it. I am not saying that he wasn't, just that I never received proof of it.
I received the gearbox mid June as my mate was away from Norwich for Easter break and posted it late. Other car trouble I had in the summer also postponed the installation. I finally got to it late October.
I go to a trusted Honda specialist in Athens. All Greek members here know him well. Actually any visit to him ends up as a mini meeting. So there are other honda enthusiasts who were present to this incident.
I told him the story that far and decided to install it without reopening it first to check as I could do without the extra cost. The fact that Josh always reported that the box had been working in his car after the repair indicated to us that most assembly mistakes would have appeared already... (wrong again)
Mechanic only filled it with new Honda MTF, reinstalled the outside brackets and sensors and bolted it on. Test with the car stationary showed all gears could be chosen correctly and the mechanic took the car for a test drive.
Everything seemed ok until my mechanic returned from the test drive. We immediately noticed a big oil leak underneath the car:
We saw a crack in the outer shell and a part of it fell off:
From that hole a distorted bolt came out:
We had to uninstall the box and open it. The bolt was missing from the mechanism that chooses the gears:
Three of the other four bolts were also looser than spec. This cannot happen with transport. Bolts do not just loosen. If this was a possibility they would loosen at the regular use of the gearbox where there is much more vibration.
The storyline is that first the bolt got loose, went through the gears and when stuck between the gear of the LSD and the outer shell the latter cracked. Not the other way round.
From the 5 bolts only the green one was bolted tight. The one the finger points to is the one that did the damage.
This actually is worse than leaving them all loose. If this was the case, the whole shifting mechanism would tilt and no gear can be selected, so driver understands something is wrong. The one that was tight was holding it and this symptom never appeared.
Again, this cannot happen with transport. Maybe the loose bolt got further out of its' position, but this would happen anyway after a few kilometers of regular use.
This is a
major assembly error.
We proceeded to the repair of the gearbox.
These are the marks of the bolts course through the gearbox (arrows show again the bolts I wrote about already):
As we had to open it up, I can also tell you the remarks from my mechanic about the "rebuild". Maybe it had been open to do some repair. But no full rebuild was done. Some bearings (two of the axle and big ones of the LSD) seem that they were left unchanged and there are signs of wear to them than can only happen by 100k miles or more. They are not trash as they are Honda, but still one must define what "full rebuild" is a lot better.
I bought an s80 outer shell and my mechanic did his "magic":
Fortunately Honda gears are tough and no significant marks were visible.
Of course all bearings were full of metallic particles.
The mechanic meticulously bathed them and cleaned them. This dust, like glitter came out:
Then there was the work of putting everything together and measuring tolerances with the other shell. 4 seperate fittings had to be done so that everything was checked: LSD alone, each axle seperately and the final assembly:
Finally the box worked, but there is a slight whining noise. Probably it is the bearings.
I informed Josh about all of this two weeks ago, on the day it happened. We have been exchanging PMs ever since. He sticks to his story about the rebuild to Jack Daines and all. I received some apologetic words like these:
I can assure you I am genuine and honest, you can see this from my feedback, this is the last thing I want. If I didn't believe I was wrong I would just be ignoring.
(all PMs can be reviewed by the administrators if you have any doubts).
BUT... ...he would never give a straight answer if he would do anything to compensate me for all the trouble.
My proposition was to return to me
part of the money I paid (215 gbp) so that I could pay the mechaninc for the extra work and the outer shell I had to replace. I also know this is a very low price to pay as it would cost a lot more if it had to be done in a UK specialist. This will
not compensate for the fact that the box is not "fully rebuilt" or that it is hurt from all the metal debris, but I tried to be diplomatic and give an easy solution to end this incident quickly without going public and making a fuss. I was very patient for two full weeks...
I even asked for another proposition from him 5 and 4 days ago, without reply. Actually he stopped communication since last friday.
He knows I would make all this public at this time.
I have no other option. I don't know what he expects from me? To pay for all the damage and remain passive?
People beware. He will not support any product he is selling.