02-10-2020, 11:04 AM
The first thing I feel I must say is that I have spent a long time thinking about what I am about to post & I do not do it lightly. I do however feel that it is not right that I keep quiet about what has been a thoroughly horrible experience from start to finish. I do it in the hope that I can save someone else the degree of frustration & expense that I have suffered.
The story below is just the briefest of synopsise, I could fill a book with the actual amount of correspondence I have accumulated over the last 18 months.
Back in April 2019 following a few minor engine issues my son Adam & I decided to pay to have a new competition engine built for his Cambridge bodied special. After researching this, one name kept cropping up over & over again. That of Pigsty racing. On the basis of generally good reports I contacted Pigsty & spoke to Alex Myall who was immediately very helpful & friendly.
I explained the situation clearly & also told him how a firm delivery date was very important. We mutually agreed a delivery date of October 2019, Alex even explained to me that as he was “fairly quiet at the moment”, he would probably be able to have the engine & gearbox completed by August 2019, and once a deposit had been received he would start on the work immediately.
A deposit of £3600.00 was paid on the 2nd of May 2019.
I don’t believe that anything is achieved by hassling people so I was happy to leave Alex to do his stuff & contact me as & when necessary. Fast forward four months to the end of September, when I called Alex to find out how things were progressing. I was assured that everything was proceeding as expected, and although he was going to miss the agreed delivery date of October 2019, he had the engine pencilled in for Dyno-ing in very early November. This was disappointing, but not the end of the world.
22nd of November when out of the blue I received an invoice for a further £3,000. I telephoned Alex to find out what this was for & he explained that as the engine was now complete & ready to be tuned, it was normal for him to make a further charge at this stage. I thought it odd that he had never mentioned this before, but to keep things moving I made this second payment by return. I made it on the specific basis that Alex had told me the engine, although now nearly 2 months overdue, was nearly ready to deliver.
18th of December, I contacted Alex via email to query what was happening as I had heard absolutely nothing from him since I sent him three grand on 22nd of November. I didn’t receive a reply to my email & began trying to call Alex on both the landline & Mobile numbers I had for him. Usually 3 or 4 times a day, never receiving any answer.
17th January. I speak top Alex on the phone, he apologises for the delays & assures me that the engine is going on the dyno within the next few days & he asks me for my delivery address.
30th Jan. Spoke to Alex on the phone, he said the engine was being dyno’d that day & it would be dispatched that evening.
6th Feb. Alex tells me that the engine has been dyno’d successfully, but he has not had a chance to dispatch it just yet. I ask him to send me a copy of the dyno figures which aren’t forthcoming.
12th Feb. I email Alex to ask what is happening. Once again I am assured that all is good, the engine will be dispatched shortly.
20th Feb. Still no news or goods from Alex. I call & text numerous times & eventually get to talk to him. He apologises for the delays & assures me that all is OK & the engine will be sorted in the next few days.
22nd Feb. Alex tells me that the engine has been shipped & that he will send the dyno figures & tracking number later that day.
3rd March. No sign of tracking number, engine or dyno figures. Contact Alex via email, no reply.
13th March.
After numerous text messages & telephone calls. I manage to get in touch with Alex, he tells me the engine is complete. I arrange to drive down & collect the engine from his works on the 18th March.
18th March. I take a day off work & make the arrangements. On the day I am due to collect I get a text to say there has been an unspecified hitch & the engine can’t be collected. I loose a days pay & am still no further forward.
23rd March. I contact Alex after the previous weeks aborted collection. Europe has now started to lockdown due to Covid-19, an excuse too good for Alex to miss out on. He tells me that he’s sorry, but as he hadn’t been completely honest with me previously & although he was working on my engine he is waiting for Shell bearings & piston rings to be delivered from his supplier in France. He can’t make any progress until they arrive & he has no idea when that is likely to be.
I do query why he has been telling me that the engine is complete for the last 5 months only to now tell me that he has no bearings or rings. He brushes this off & I don’t see any point in pursuing the matter. I am £6,600 & 5 months down.
6th May. I contact Alex as I hadn’t heard from him in over a month. He tells me that he has been able to catch up a bit & that my engine is almost complete & asks for my delivery address.
15th July. Still no sign of the engine. Contact Alex, no response.
22nd July. Still no word from Alex & no sign of engine. I contact him.
29th July. Alex tells me the engine has been dispatched & gives me a tracking number. I don’t hear anything from the courier though. It transpires that he has dispatched the engine but the wrong address.
30th July. Engine arrives at my address, no gearbox though. Poorly packed, screwed to a home made pallet that had broken in transit. I noted some damage to the engine immediately & notified Alex.
5th August. Received replacement carb jet direct from Alex’s supplier. Still no word on gearbox.
10th August. Received Invoice for Engine along with dyno figures. Paid by return. Still no word on gearbox.
23rd August. Collected gearbox from Alex at Mallory Park.
24th August. Received Invoice & paid for gearbox.
22nd Sept. Fitted Engine & gearbox. Front pulley was found to be bent from it’s poor packing. Contacted Alex, he said he would send one out by return. Nothing received to this day.
26th Sept. Replaced pulley with one bought myself. Filled engine with water found multiple leaks from studs. Bunged these up with radweld. Started doing the wiring, found that there was no output from the dynamo. When I ordered the engine back in 2019, I had specifically said that I wanted a Good 2 brush 12V dynamo fitting, the dynamo supplied & fitted by Pigsty racing was a second hand 3 brush unit that had a fault in the field winding, not really what you would expect to be found in a £10,000 engine. I spoke to him about it he apologised yet again & said that he would sort a replacement dynamo & send it out asap.
As of this morning, nearly a week later I have, unsurprisingly received nothing, so I have ordered one myself.
Throughout all my dealings with Alex, during literally 100’s of telephone calls, text messages & whatsaps, he has always been courteous, friendly & almost totally dishonest. I have never known anyone who is so adept at “telling the customer what they want to hear” without any hesitation or flicker of conscience whatsoever. So many times I told him, "I'd rather have bad news than bullshit" but I'd still get fed a total pile.
On a more positive note. The engine has had a couple of test drives up our road & the performance seems pretty good. OK, it’s full of Radweld, the ignition scatters all over the place due to the rattly cam gears & whether I’ll be able to time it back in correctly without a dyno session after I have changed the Dynamo is anyone’s guess. I suppose that only time will tell.
For a long time I lived in hope that I could form some sort of ongoing relationship with Alex, but I realise it is ridiculous to believe that this particular Leopard will ever change his spots. I realise that in writing the above, I have well & truly burned my boats with Alex, but after a year & a half of being messed about, lied to & being promised that items have been posted when they obviously haven't, I don't have anything left to loose. I only hope that other's can learn from my mistake..
The story below is just the briefest of synopsise, I could fill a book with the actual amount of correspondence I have accumulated over the last 18 months.
Back in April 2019 following a few minor engine issues my son Adam & I decided to pay to have a new competition engine built for his Cambridge bodied special. After researching this, one name kept cropping up over & over again. That of Pigsty racing. On the basis of generally good reports I contacted Pigsty & spoke to Alex Myall who was immediately very helpful & friendly.
I explained the situation clearly & also told him how a firm delivery date was very important. We mutually agreed a delivery date of October 2019, Alex even explained to me that as he was “fairly quiet at the moment”, he would probably be able to have the engine & gearbox completed by August 2019, and once a deposit had been received he would start on the work immediately.
A deposit of £3600.00 was paid on the 2nd of May 2019.
I don’t believe that anything is achieved by hassling people so I was happy to leave Alex to do his stuff & contact me as & when necessary. Fast forward four months to the end of September, when I called Alex to find out how things were progressing. I was assured that everything was proceeding as expected, and although he was going to miss the agreed delivery date of October 2019, he had the engine pencilled in for Dyno-ing in very early November. This was disappointing, but not the end of the world.
22nd of November when out of the blue I received an invoice for a further £3,000. I telephoned Alex to find out what this was for & he explained that as the engine was now complete & ready to be tuned, it was normal for him to make a further charge at this stage. I thought it odd that he had never mentioned this before, but to keep things moving I made this second payment by return. I made it on the specific basis that Alex had told me the engine, although now nearly 2 months overdue, was nearly ready to deliver.
18th of December, I contacted Alex via email to query what was happening as I had heard absolutely nothing from him since I sent him three grand on 22nd of November. I didn’t receive a reply to my email & began trying to call Alex on both the landline & Mobile numbers I had for him. Usually 3 or 4 times a day, never receiving any answer.
17th January. I speak top Alex on the phone, he apologises for the delays & assures me that the engine is going on the dyno within the next few days & he asks me for my delivery address.
30th Jan. Spoke to Alex on the phone, he said the engine was being dyno’d that day & it would be dispatched that evening.
6th Feb. Alex tells me that the engine has been dyno’d successfully, but he has not had a chance to dispatch it just yet. I ask him to send me a copy of the dyno figures which aren’t forthcoming.
12th Feb. I email Alex to ask what is happening. Once again I am assured that all is good, the engine will be dispatched shortly.
20th Feb. Still no news or goods from Alex. I call & text numerous times & eventually get to talk to him. He apologises for the delays & assures me that all is OK & the engine will be sorted in the next few days.
22nd Feb. Alex tells me that the engine has been shipped & that he will send the dyno figures & tracking number later that day.
3rd March. No sign of tracking number, engine or dyno figures. Contact Alex via email, no reply.
13th March.
After numerous text messages & telephone calls. I manage to get in touch with Alex, he tells me the engine is complete. I arrange to drive down & collect the engine from his works on the 18th March.
18th March. I take a day off work & make the arrangements. On the day I am due to collect I get a text to say there has been an unspecified hitch & the engine can’t be collected. I loose a days pay & am still no further forward.
23rd March. I contact Alex after the previous weeks aborted collection. Europe has now started to lockdown due to Covid-19, an excuse too good for Alex to miss out on. He tells me that he’s sorry, but as he hadn’t been completely honest with me previously & although he was working on my engine he is waiting for Shell bearings & piston rings to be delivered from his supplier in France. He can’t make any progress until they arrive & he has no idea when that is likely to be.
I do query why he has been telling me that the engine is complete for the last 5 months only to now tell me that he has no bearings or rings. He brushes this off & I don’t see any point in pursuing the matter. I am £6,600 & 5 months down.
6th May. I contact Alex as I hadn’t heard from him in over a month. He tells me that he has been able to catch up a bit & that my engine is almost complete & asks for my delivery address.
15th July. Still no sign of the engine. Contact Alex, no response.
22nd July. Still no word from Alex & no sign of engine. I contact him.
29th July. Alex tells me the engine has been dispatched & gives me a tracking number. I don’t hear anything from the courier though. It transpires that he has dispatched the engine but the wrong address.
30th July. Engine arrives at my address, no gearbox though. Poorly packed, screwed to a home made pallet that had broken in transit. I noted some damage to the engine immediately & notified Alex.
5th August. Received replacement carb jet direct from Alex’s supplier. Still no word on gearbox.
10th August. Received Invoice for Engine along with dyno figures. Paid by return. Still no word on gearbox.
23rd August. Collected gearbox from Alex at Mallory Park.
24th August. Received Invoice & paid for gearbox.
22nd Sept. Fitted Engine & gearbox. Front pulley was found to be bent from it’s poor packing. Contacted Alex, he said he would send one out by return. Nothing received to this day.
26th Sept. Replaced pulley with one bought myself. Filled engine with water found multiple leaks from studs. Bunged these up with radweld. Started doing the wiring, found that there was no output from the dynamo. When I ordered the engine back in 2019, I had specifically said that I wanted a Good 2 brush 12V dynamo fitting, the dynamo supplied & fitted by Pigsty racing was a second hand 3 brush unit that had a fault in the field winding, not really what you would expect to be found in a £10,000 engine. I spoke to him about it he apologised yet again & said that he would sort a replacement dynamo & send it out asap.
As of this morning, nearly a week later I have, unsurprisingly received nothing, so I have ordered one myself.
Throughout all my dealings with Alex, during literally 100’s of telephone calls, text messages & whatsaps, he has always been courteous, friendly & almost totally dishonest. I have never known anyone who is so adept at “telling the customer what they want to hear” without any hesitation or flicker of conscience whatsoever. So many times I told him, "I'd rather have bad news than bullshit" but I'd still get fed a total pile.
On a more positive note. The engine has had a couple of test drives up our road & the performance seems pretty good. OK, it’s full of Radweld, the ignition scatters all over the place due to the rattly cam gears & whether I’ll be able to time it back in correctly without a dyno session after I have changed the Dynamo is anyone’s guess. I suppose that only time will tell.
For a long time I lived in hope that I could form some sort of ongoing relationship with Alex, but I realise it is ridiculous to believe that this particular Leopard will ever change his spots. I realise that in writing the above, I have well & truly burned my boats with Alex, but after a year & a half of being messed about, lied to & being promised that items have been posted when they obviously haven't, I don't have anything left to loose. I only hope that other's can learn from my mistake..