Eflores

Ok to all of you here on naxja.com do not do business with this member. Here is my story.

I have 1991 XJ with a TeraFlex High Steer setup on it. I was tired of running wheel spacers on my jeep so I opted to see if anyone would be willing to trade me there D30 for my setup. A memeber eflores contacted me and stated that he has a D30 with some upgraded parts that he would be willing to trade me and that he would come take my Jeep and do the swap for me. I stated to him that if he could swap out my axle for his I would also throw in the set of 4 Spidertrax wheel spacers that were on my Jeep and all other after market parts such as a Dynatrac diff cover and new hubs and brakes. Flores comes over and picks up my Jeep on Thursday and then he tells me he would have it back to me on Tueasday. During this five day ordeal he hardly awnsers his phone and he told me he would keep me in the loop. I had to call him and bug him about the status of my Jeep. Tuesday comes and goes, then Wed, then Thursday night I keep calling him and finally he tells me he is at his shop drinking beers and wrenching on Jeeps. I explain to him that I really need my Jeep back so I can go to work on Friday because I might get called in. Flores brings my Jeep to me a little after 12am on Friday morning. Friday morning at 9am I get up and I got to take my Jeep to the car wash and I notice a huge puddle of diff fluid on my driveway. I go tighten up all the diff cover bolts and they are all tight. I take it to the car wash and while Im driving it I notice a horrible whinning sound. It sounds like a winch was being used. I call a mechanic buddy of mine and explain what I have going on to him, so he wants me to bring it by his shop. We examine the diff first and notice that the fluid is leaking from a damaged pinon seal on the axle and its leakinf diff fluid everywhere. We then jack up the jeep and the drivers side tire moves inwards. My friend can literally wiggle the tire back and forth, so obviously we have a bad/ broken hub. We then notice that the brakes on the axle are so bad that the pads are worn past the wear bars and that the rotors are also worn down and cannot be machined. I call fores and explain to him what is going on. He tells me that the hubs are new and that the brakes were fine when he dropped it off at my house. I tell him there is no way that the brakes wore out that fast from my house to my friends shop which is 10 miles away. I then notice that flores re installed my brake lines wrong and in doing so the braided line was pinched and now is leaking brake fluid. My buddy offers to talk to flores so he can better explain what he is seeing on my Jeep. Flores gets upset and begins to say that my friend doesnt know jack about Jeeps and isnt a mechanic. Flores did say that he would fix the broken parts but why would I go back to a guy who let me drive off with a busted hub and horrible brakes. Not only is that unsafe for me but for all other motorists who I drive next to. Plus I dont have the time to have him come over and take the Jeep again and keep for who knows how long. I had to shell out over $200 dollars for new parts on the axle so far. Flores name in Colorado Springs is so bad that I took the hub over to a local auto parts store to get a replacement and the clerk knew flores and said that he was a huge "dbag" so they hooked me up with a new hub and brakes for a cheap.

I will never do business with flores again, he obviously is a horrible mechanic and doesnt care about screwing people over I cant believe the company he works for employs him to work on other peoples vehicles and big trucks. So to all you out there dont do business with flores or have him work on your Jeep.

Ryan.

Ok, so this thread has been reopened and the BOD will be watching it very closely.

NO ONE IS TO POST IN THIS THREAD AT THIS TIME OTHER THAN EFLORES.

We opened it in order to give him the opportunity to respond.

We will delete any other posts that show up before then.

I want to apologize for taking so long to respond to this thread.

Fist off im sincerely disheartened at the fact that such an argument could happen in with a deal amongst friends.

The facts of the deal:

His Dana 30 with diff cover and high steer along with wheel spacers
in exchange for my dana 30 with QA1 Heim and DOM steering and a free regear on that axle when it came time.
I was to do all the work.
He was informed that the pinion seal did leak and i'd come by and replace it for him at a later date.
He stated his brakes were new i told him mine had about half of the pad left and he stated that was no big deal and not a deal breaker.

when i found out the unit bearing was bad i was sort of confused as both of them are quite new (6 months old at most) and still shiny.
Maybe i made a mistake and left a shaft a little loose and it fried it. I dont Know. When i asked his mechanic to check if the shaft was loose he informed me that the shaft has NOTHING to do with the performance or integrity of the unit bearing. Furthermore he asked what the 2wd's do. I informed him that they have stub shafts. He stated that i was wrong and i didn't know what i was talking about. Ryan gets back on the phone and again i tell him i'll make it right. Ive made mistakes. We've all seen it. Shit happens.

Horrible brakes? The next thing is when i got done with the swap i adjusted his drum brakes for him. Huge improvement from when i drove it in.
I did pickup and drop off the vehicle. He did offer to pay me for that but never did.
And yet another buddy buddy favor went in the deal after i got the jeep.
Can you look at my heater? yup fixed that.
Can you throw some bolts in where my roof rack used to be it leaks water.
Yup fixed that.

So in the end i'm very disappointed. This wasn't the fist time we'd got together. Hopefully not the last. But i can tell you. There have been a lot of jeeps roll through this garage. Yes things have broken, but you are the first one who didn't leave happy in the end.

Flores

I am Ryan's mechanic. In Ryans defense EVERY part on that axle Flores put on his jeep is junk. I have done most of the maintenance on Ryans jeep and I know the things I have done and done right.

1: The pinion bearings are completly shot to the point that if it was my vehicle I would be afraid to put it in fourwheel drive, the gears howl so bad you cant hear the radio.

2: The driver side unit bearing was so bad the wheel was about to fall off the jeep.

3: Ryans jeep is a 91 with the late model better brakes. instead of swapping knuckles like you should have done you put in the old syle brakes from an 89. This summer I installed PFC carbon metallic brake pads and new rotors. The pads in Ryans jeep had less than 1/8th of an inch and the rotors were machined over .020 of an inch beyond the minumum thickness. On top of things all four caliper bolts were stripped out and had to be replaced. You also installed the brake lines inproperly so every time you turned the wheel it pinched the lines. What were perfectly good steel braided lines are all crushed and frayed at the caliper end now.

4: The rebuilt and not leaking Dodge Durango steering box I installed in ryans jeep, also this summer, was swapped out for a crap leaking ass box that is diffucult to turn to one side. What's funny is that you claimed on the phone with me to be a "master mechanic" but the reason you gave Ryan you swapped out the box was because you did not own a pitman arm puller. A tool that Auto Zone and every other auto parts store rents for FREE!!!!!

5: After swapping steering boxes you also proceeded to fill the power steering system up with transmission fluid instead of actually using the power steering fluid that Jeep calls for and was already in the system.

6: The "heater repair" you referenced in your post involved unhooking the vacuum line off the heater control valve and sticking it on a bolt adjacent to the valve making the A/C inoperable. "master mechanics" don't fix problems by breaking other things.

The bottom line is that EVERYTHING you touched on Ryans jeep was completely wrong. Mistakes are one thing but when you are doing business with other people and then putting their lives in danger because of your mistakes that is something to not be taken lightly. Take this not as a personal attack but as a lesson learned. You can call yourself a "master mechanic" all you want but Ryan spent several hundred dollars and I spent the last two full days fixing your work.

Last night Ryan and i had a talk about the steering box. I was under the impression that he and i were on the same page concerning that issue. At any rate if you still have an issue with this feel free to call me and we can discuss this further.
Flores

ok so flores has contacted me perosnally and he wanted to know what he could do to make the situation right. He offered to give me my steering box back and Ill swap his back to him. I told him that the gears in the axle are still bad and still make a horrible noise. I have replaced everything on the axle like the hubs, brakes, rotors, new braided brake lines new diff cover and gasket and fluid. Flores is is going to purchase a set of 4:88 gears foe me to help me out. He told me the gears would be in after the holidays. He also offered to install the gears and I declined due to my jeep being at a shop already all torn apart. So in closing I apprecitae that flores stepped up and made the problem right.

Update...its been 5 months since this incident occurred. Flores took parts off my Jeep that did not belong to him and he did not have permission to remove and put on his jeep. I have called Flores about a-zillion times trying to get this worked out. He never comes through or wont awnser the phone or tells me he is working and cant talk. last night he text message me calling me a "punk" due to the post by in4aride. Flores calls then is rude and short with me on the phone. Tonight I find out all along that he actually sold the Jeep that had my Dodge Durango Steering box on it and pitman arm. The box that was Flores is currently on my Jeep and is a leaking POS. It is messed up. I havent been able to drive the Jeep due to this part and its lack of performance. Im actually afraid to drive my Jeep with the POS stock steering box. This is getting out of hand and he has made effort to fix this problem. Flores has lied about the whole thing and now is dragging others into this trying to make them help him out and cover for him. Heres the deal Flores you need to come up with a new 98 Dodge Durango Steering Box and pitman arm thats fits the setup. The box and pitman arm that was on my Jeep was in perfect working order and was purchased from another RED letter member on here. That same member has a box for sale....GO GET IT and then get a new pitman arm and all this garbage is over.

Bought wheels off me today, had cash in hand showed up when he was supposed too. Good buyer!!