Let's hear it... What's the beef? Problems etc.. Why do you guys stay away?
All you have to do is google Hennessey and Fraud and you will get a boat load of storys. But here is an article that Autoweek published on the subject:
This is from an Autoweek article back in mid 2002.
Hennessey's Vipers are fast, but lawsuits say he serves them up too slowly. (Photo by Mark Vaughn)
Ninety-eight percent of his customers love him, John Hennessey says. But a few hate him and some have sued. Hennessey Motorsports in Houston specializes in tuning Vipers, adding more power to what is already one of the most powerful cars in the world. Hennessey’s Vipers have been featured in this and many other magazines and the cars he has sent to us and to other media were impressive performers. Hennessey presents himself well, projecting an image of the consummate Texas good ol’ boy whose reassuring conversational style and howyewdoin’ demeanor put customers at ease. People believe they will get what he says he’ll give them. But not all people do.
According to a lawsuit filed in Salt Lake City, Utah resident Taig Stewart sent his Viper GTS to Hennessey last May for an engine upgrade to 1100 hp along with several other modifications. For that he wire-transferred $142,500 to Hennessey. The lawsuit states the parties agreed the car would be done by mid-July 2001. As of press time the car was still sitting under a tarp in Hennessey’s shop in Houston. Or most of the car, anyway. Stewart’s suit claims Hennessey sold the car’s engine, transmission, wheels, tires and hood. The suit seeks return of the money, the Viper and “no less than $1 million” in punitive damages.
Hennessey claims he’s just slow in getting the work done.
“My side of the story is we’re planning on finishing his car and planning on giving him everything that he paid for,” said Hennessey. As for the parts being sold, “That’s totally false. We’ve got all his parts in the shop except the hood and he wanted to do a lightweight hood.”
Stewart is not the first unsatisfied customer. The longer we dug the more dissatisfaction we found. Here’s a sampling:
On Nov. 14 a New Jersey court entered a final judgement of $133,674 against Hennessey on behalf of Viper owner Gary Dan for a botched conversion.
William Walters said he is out over $22,000 after shipping his Corvette to Hennessey for a head and cam package that was never done; he did have five rods bent and a head gasket damaged on the dyno in Hennessey’s shop during an experiment Hennessey tried with nitrous oxide.
Jerry Johnson said he had to file suit in Placer County Court in California to straighten out registration and engine computer problems on a Viper he bought from Hennessey. n Jon Belinkie said he loves the changes made to his Viper but had to sue in his home state of Maryland, then register the judgement in Texas, to recover overcharges Hennessey made on his American Express card.
Rick Ryan said he had to hound Hennessey for eight months by long distance from Marietta, Georgia, to put the proper wing and stripes on his Viper.
Mark Lublin said he sent his Viper cylinder heads to Hennessey for new valves but when the heads came back he found the “new” valves were actually used; a cam that was delivered to Lublin in a Hennessey box turned out to be a stock Chrysler cam. Lublin was finally refunded $5,715 from American Express but only after nine months of disputing the charge; and he got no money from Hennessey.
Bruce Iannatuono said he ordered $8,500 worth of Hennessey parts for his mechanic in Baltimore to install but was only able to use two-thirds of what was shipped, and then only after haranguing Hennessey for six months on an order that was originally promised in five weeks.
Most of the complaints come from outside Texas. Hennessey, some said, tends to take better care of local customers.
“If you were out of state, man you were fair game,” said Kyle Kent, a former employee at Hennessey Motorsports. When an out-of-state car came in it was sometimes parted out, with the wheels, tires and whatever else looked good going to other cars waiting to be finished or sold outright, according to Kent and others inside Hennessey Motorsports. Then Hennessey would call the car’s owner and try to sell him an upgraded kit. If the customer balked, Hennessey would take parts from other cars in the shop, or just let the job sit.
Kent described one typical disassembly on an out-of-state Viper. “The motor and transmission went into a Durango John was putting together, the brakes went to someone else, the hood went to a guy in Ohio, the rear bumper to South Carolina, man you name it. We had multiple cars like that.”
Another common practice was putting stock parts on what was supposed to be an upgraded car.
“One customer spent $130,000 to $140,000 and that guy thought he had purchased a Venom 650R package which he thought came with the stroker motor,” Kent said. “John told him he was getting a stroker. He was just getting heads and cams.”
Hennessey denies any wrongdoing.
“I’ve got probably 3000 customers,” he said. “I’ve built over 300 cars and out of that I’ve had a handful of people that I’ve had some sort of a delivery problem with and I’ve had some of them who have sued me. So is that some sort of a trend or is that par for the course?”
Five years ago I bought a brand new 2001 Viper GTS and sent it to John [******]--along with $142,500--to build what I hoped would be one hell of a Viper. Many of you will remember that fiasco. I won’t revisit any of that history here, not because I have any moral or legal compunctions restraining me from doing so but because I lost interest in fighting this fight quite a long time ago.
So why this post? Simple. To tell the rest of the story and more importantly to give credit to a couple of exceptional guys who took up the fight for me and who fought until the end without any expectation of a reward other than the feeling that comes from helping someone out. Also, since expressing that gratitude here wouldn’t make much sense without at least a brief conclusion to the story of my experiences with John [******], I need to make that happen. Along with the good, of course, there were a few other guys who deserve credit of a very different nature too, but they know who they are so we’ll just let that pile go unstepped-in.
Just to recap my story, I sent $142,500 and a brand new Viper to John [******] after reading Motor Trend’s gushing article on [******]’s Venom 800 in April 2001. It took three years to get my Viper back from [******] in a “dynoable,” if not “drivable” condition. In fact it ran just long enough to make a strong run on the dyno in Salt Lake City in September of 2003 (for which I was not present) before the first turbo blew 50 miles later. The car was also missing over $85,000 of parts and upgrades I’d paid for two years earlier: Brembos, Penske suspension, HREs, Quaife, etc. Without going into specifics, a legal “settlement” was reached which stipulated that I was to receive the missing parts over the course of the next several months with the promise that the car would be tuned to actually run.
Well, to make a very long story very, very short, I spent a total of $315,000 (the new Viper and [******]’s fee plus the attorney’s take of 33% on everything recovered from [******]--including the car itself--plus miscellaneous expenses) for a Viper made up of parts from at least two different cars that wouldn’t even start. I confess, at this point I simply gave up.
But that wasn’t the end of the story.
Most of you know a guy named Bill (aka MANA) who can frequently be found wherever there are exhaust fumes on the net. Most of you also know, or have heard about a tuner named Jason Heffner (8.75/168 MPH). Simply stated, if it wasn’t for the collaborative efforts of Bill and Jason, I still wouldn’t have a Viper that ran today.
I met Bill in 2002 not long after I realized things weren’t quite as they should be in Houston. After receiving an anonymous message on my cell phone urging me to “look into the forums and call [******] again about your car” I began delving into the Viper and other forums. After I’d read a few of Bill’s posts on the Corvette forum, I sent him an e-mail with my story. I didn’t expect anything, it just felt good to get it off my chest. It wasn’t like I wanted to talk to my wife about it yet, after all… Bill and I have been close friends ever since. Every single time progress was made in trying to get information about my car from [******], Bill was behind it. He was the reason I even got the car back three years later. Bill proved to be an exceptionally loyal friend who never gave up the fight, even long after I had. I owe him a hell of a lot and I won’t ever forget it.
Some months after I’d given up on the car altogether, I got a call from Jason Heffner. I’d heard of Heffner’s cars and Bill spoke highly of him but I didn’t know too much about him other than that. Jason told me Bill had talked to him about my Viper and he wondered if I would be willing to send the car out to him to work with. He didn’t talk about money, he just said maybe he could help with the car. I sent it to him (plug for Gary Almond here--Thanks Gary!) and assured Jason that he could have it as long as he wanted it since I’d had it for five years already without it running for more than a few hours.
Again, without going into the details of what he found under the hood, Jason worked and worked and worked. He called and updated me consistently every step of the way. In the end there was a lot of work that had to be done, parts to be replaced and/or modified (the second turbo was also blown) to make it all work but the day came when he called and told me the car was finished. He felt bad that it wasn’t perfect but he said it ran “pretty well” and that he’d done everything he could do. A week later, Gary Almond delivered it to me and I can honestly say it didn’t look like the car I’d sent him. Not only had he fixed the engine and turbo system and installed all braided SS lines instead of the rubber ones it had came back to me with but he’d added an AEM EMS, installed Penske suspension (one of the many things I never received from [******] despite the legal settlement) and had the whole car wet sanded because he felt the paint “just wasn’t quite right.” When I asked him what I owed him he just asked if I’d feel comfortable covering his cost for the AEM and the Penskes. He would not take money for anything else and insisted that he just wanted to help out.
That was six months ago now. The Viper runs like I imagined it would when I sent it to John [******] five years ago. To say I think Jason Heffner is an honorable man who went way beyond the call of duty to help out a guy he didn’t even know is an understatement. Hell, he went way beyond what anyone else even offered to do for me for substantial additional money. And his work--including that on a turbo system he can’t vouch for--is exceptional. Needless to say I have nothing but the highest praise for Jason Heffner.
I realize that if I had hung out on the forums instead of just trusting the car mags before my adventures with John [******] that I probably wouldn’t have the experiences I did. But hindsight is 20/20 and I’m not complaining. What I can’t let get swept under the rug, however, is the recognition and credit for the way Bill and Jason have fought in my corner, not because they had to or were paid to, but because that is just the way they are. I said in the beginning there were many players in this story; many who turned out to be self serving, deceptive, or even downright nasty, those who turned out to be genuinely interested and helpful, and a few who were extraordinary in giving their support and giving of their time and effort with no hope for reward or compensation other than my friendship.
In any event, that’s the rest of the story. I felt it was necessary for me to finally clear the air about what really happened and to give credit to those who worked to make things right for me--especially to Bill and Jason. I’m very grateful.
Taig Stewart
