Bryan Bloch vs. Remi Autosport (Race Marque Systems)

The following documentation will illustrate the reasons that I am disputing all Debit and Credit card payments to Remi Autosport for the work they performed on my 2001 BMW M5. Since Remi Autosport operates as Race Marque Systems to the general public, I will refer to Remi Autosport as Race Marque Systems (RMS) throughout the rest of this document.

Before going into the reasons, it is important for you to understand the scope of the project which is as follows: The 2001 BMW M5 is one of the greatest performing four-door sedans in the world just as it comes from BMW. The car’s price of $73,000 new puts it in a special class of vehicles and the owners of these vehicles tend to be highly knowledgeable about the various available upgrades in the market. In fact, it is fair to say that those who own this vehicle are also very likely to be members of M5 enthusiast web groups such as www.m5board.com. I tell you this so that you understand that with only a couple of thousand M5s sold in the US each year, the owner group and the potential owner group is small and very well informed and therefore, if you make modifications on your M5 that devalue the vehicle, you are going to have a very hard time selling it at a later date.

In any event, my BMW M5 was sent to have over $40,000 worth of modifications to make is faster, stop better and to make it look better. Unfortunately, that is not what happened and what follows explains the reasons for these disputes which fall into several major areas including:

• Damages I have incurred as a direct result of RMS’ breach of the contract’s timetable
• The lack of quality and integrity of the overall project design which has resulted in the permanent devaluation of my vehicle.
• My old parts not being returned with the vehicle.
• The finished product being delivered with almost no horsepower increase – the biggest and most important feature of the “Superfast M5” package (which is what I bought from RMS.)
• The total lack of quality of the parts installed and of the installation itself.
• The total lack of value of the warranty promised by RMS.

The Original Contract Timeframe:

As you will see in the signed agreement below, this project was to be completed within 6 weeks from the date that RMS received my car. Please read through the document below:

As noted in the agreement, the 6 weeks was an estimate, but the magazine shoot did not effect the delivery date as the car went to the magazine twice during the time it was with RMS and was still not completed after its return from either trip to the magazine. As you can see in the e-mail from Osh Minelian (Owner of RMS), the car was received by RMS on 6/4/2003:

From: Osh Minelian [mailto:Osh@racemarque.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2003 11:59 PM
To: Bloch, Bryan
Subject: RE: Insurance problem solved

Sounds like a plan. I received your M5 today:-)

Thank you for calling on Race Marque Systems

Sincerely

Osh Minelian

Director
Product Engineering

Race Marque Systems
14418 Oxnard Street
Van Nuys Ca. 91401
tel: 818.778.6106
fax: 818-778-6109

 The “finished” product was delivered to me on 1/3/2004 – and that was only after RMS missed the agreed upon ship to me date three times! So, a project that was supposed to take 45 days ended up taking a whopping 210 days – and extra five and a half months.

Because of this delay, I incurred financial damage in the following ways:

• My 2001 BMW M5 depreciated an additional $3,666 over the additional 5.5 months that RMS had the car. This figure is based upon information available through www.edmunds.com, a well-known consumer web-based pricing guide. Of course, it actually depreciated a lot more due to the blowing up of the original engine, but for now, I am strictly talking about the time factor. I will cover the other devaluation later.
• Because I did not have my vehicle back, I was forced to purchase another vehicle that was of similar comfort and value. I bought a 2002 BMW X5 4.6 and I estimate (also based upon Edmunds) that the depreciation of this vehicle is similar to the M5 and therefore I have lost another $3,666 in depreciation over those 5.5 months, not to mention the costs I will incur selling the vehicle, nor the additional depreciation that I will lose during the time I have to spend now to get my M5 running in the proper order.
• There of course is my time which runs at approximately $145 per hour. Just in additional emails alone (150+ sent by me after the date that I should have received the car), I have at least 35 extra hours of my time in the project. 35 x $145 = $5075.

On the low side, without counting all of my time or other things such as vehicle insurance (for both cars) my satellite radio subscription expiring, I am out approximately $12, 407 as a direct result of the project not being completed within the promised timeframe.

Please keep in mind that the dollar figures quoted above are based upon published results and upon expert opinion. I own a dealership (Panaggio-Bloch Motors, LLC) and I can verify as an expert that the depreciation figures from Edmunds are on target. As for my time of $145 per hour – my tax return can validate that as an absolute minimum.

The lack of quality and integrity of the overall project design and the resulting devaluation of my vehicle

Before deciding to bring my M5 to RMS, I researched their web site where they describe the project in detail. My car was to be known as an RMS Superfast M5. Below is a description of an RMS Superfast as taken from RMS’ web site:

RMS Supercharged M5

Race Marque Systems is a technology/tuner dedicated to creating high-speed, ultra high-performance BMW automobiles. As you will see, the RMS Supercharged M5 has been carefully thought out and executed with painstaking detail. Our standards and approach to every supercharger system begins with the word "Systems" in our name, because we take a total systems approach to every high-performance BMW product we engineer. We don't simply bolt on a supercharger or turbo, or bore and stroke the engine and hope for the best. Instead, we reverse-engineer the product to understand its strengths and weaknesses, and only then do we decide what can prudently be done with the gathered information. When the product is complete, the result is a powerful, well-balanced, highly tuned, reliable sporting machine in which all components are equal to the application. You will see, from the information below, that all systems have been carefully planned to work in harmony. From the RMS fuel charger that was solely engineered to provide Formula Style fueling for our supercharged BMWs, to proprietary RMS castings foundered to factory fit; from the carbon composite tubing and billet aluminum sculpted to an art form, to plumbing that is carefully routed to not infringe on the functions of existing components. When it comes to late model BMW automobiles, we have the recipe for speed, fit and finish.

The M5s power plant delivers astounding levels of supercharged power. Inviting world class performance with factory reliability Pressurized by the V2 SQ centrifugal supercharger - a perfect match for the S62 powered M5.

RMS application technologies assure proper fitment and tuning integration. The RMS design air-to-liquid after-cooler neatly fits within the confines of the factory plenum housing, constantly minimizing air temperatures. The air-flow components in side the plenum features 8 billet air-horns with integral formula injectors.

The twin dual injection system provides additional fuel and improves cooling at high RPMs. On a typical race motor you will often find the fuel injectors are place further away from the motor for maximized horsepower. This works incredibly well at high RPMs. On passenger cars the injectors are place close to the motor. This provides good emissions, low RPM torque and excellent drivability. This factory injector placement is mostly useful in lower to mid RPM operation where the emissions are most difficult to control. We have found many benefits in integrating additional fuel control, from better emissions to high power output. As the RPMs and boost build, the factory injectors are trimmed back and the secondary injectors are fazed in with seamless control by the RMS FuelCharger(tm). With the development of the RMS Fuel Charge controller, The M5s exemplifies factory-tuned drivability resulting in the best-of-both worlds; smooth low RPM drivability and the exhilarating high RPM power.

The esp proprietary software tuning system is our strong hold to superior hardware control. Additional safeguards for fuel trim, ignition timing, and RPM limit and traction control are engineered into the RMS esp program. We do not take our tuning lightly.

RMS Hardware is known to be the best in the industry. Nothing is spared when this hardware was designed. Surface ground 22mm 6061 t6 Aluminum plate mounts the supercharger. The main plate has an integrating RMS design self adjusting tensioner. This design safeguards proper belt tension and damping on sudden deceleration. Hardware is 318ss stainless steel keeping the bright-work bright.

The air intake system is managed by the RMS carbon-fiber cold air intake system. The tube has an integrated directional air return system that is computer controlled to assure smooth on off throttle response.

The system features a computer controlled air management valve. This RMS innovation makes it possible to divert large amounts of air when not needed hence providing incredibly gas mileage and smooth drivability. When the accelerator is applied, high rpm power responds instantly.

If you read through the information above, I’m sure you realize that nowhere in the process description does it say that RMS will blow up your original M5 engine in the process – yet that is exactly what happened. Of course, I only know this because of the fact that a former RMS employee – Gary Karamikian – told me about the engine being blown. Gary now works for a competitive shop, also in California, know as Evosport. I had stayed in touch with Gary and he let me know about the blown engine (he found out from another former employee and had the information confirmed by a current RMS employee – a fabricator named Steve.)

By this point in the process, I was working with William Knobloch who was working for RMS as a consultant. Mr. Knobloch had been an RMS customer and was now a consultant who was trying to help RMS get many of the vehicles that had been stuck in RMS’ shop for many months back to their rightful owners. And since by this point in the project my car was already months overdue, any assistance that could be offered to speed up the process was assistance I was all in favor of, so I happily began talking to Mr. Knobloch about getting my car back to me completed.

I mentioned to Mr. Knobloch that I had heard the engine had been blown and I told Mr. Knobloch that when the car was finally returned to me that I would check the serial number on the engine and told Mr. Knobloch that if in fact the engine had been replaced, the I would call the police and report to them that my engine had been stolen by RMS. A week or so later, I was contacted by Mr. Knobloch and he let me know that the engine had in fact been replaced with an engine that had less mileage on it than mine did. Mr. Knobloch did not know the exact reasoning for the replacement of the engine – only that it had happened (Mr. Knobloch is located in Northern California – RMS is in Southern California.)

Several days later, RMS owner Osh Minelian called to congratulate and tell me that I had a new engine. He was actually trying to present it to me like it was some sort of gift. He said that after the Car and Driver Magazine testing, he noticed some oil seeping at the head gasket and told me that was a sign that the gasket was sure to go soon… so he decided since I had been waiting so long for the car and since it was easier to just replace the whole engine, that he would simply put his 7000 mile engine in and take out my 56000 mile engine and not charge me for any of that. And, of course, he would do all of that without telling me. What a sport… give me a break.

Anyway, he never disclosed the fact that the pistons had holes in them and this was verified by two former employees (Gary and the former shop Forman, Robert and Steve the current fabricator – who all could give statements if necessary.)

The point of all this is:

·        My original engine blew up after being modified by RMS.

·        The engine blew after Car and Driver tested the car – proving that the engine can run for a while before blowing up.

·        The engine in my car now could just as easily blow up in the near future because of damage that may have been done to the engine during “tuning” that won’t show up until later. This is especially likely since the same source who told me about the engine being blown also let me know that the engine that is currently in my car suffered detonation during tuning (detonation leads directly to failure if serious enough.).

·        Even though I am now sending my vehicle to be “re-tuned,” there may still be damage to the engine that can cause a failure and the only way to ensure that is not the case is to disassemble the engine and look at the parts within.

So how does this devalue my car?

·        The serial number for the chassis no longer matches with the original engine. This is something that I will have to disclose at the time of sale and something that will seriously devalue the car simply because the numbers do not match. I would estimate a loss of $10K-$15K at the time of sale.

·        When I disclose that the engine is not original, I will surely be asked why the engine is replaced. Unlike Osh, I will have to tell the truth and therefore will have to say that the original engine blew up during supercharging, but that the engine in there now is fine. That ought to make the sale, huh? Anybody reading this want to buy this car? You get my point, the decrease in value at that point will be pretty high if not insurmountable!

My old parts not being returned with the vehicle.

I asked Osh in countless e-mails (and by the way, I have all 300+ emails back and forth to Osh and can supply any evidence you may need) to return the old parts he took from my car. He shipped the car back with not one old part except for my original wheels (I purchased wheels from him – more on those later.) He kept all the parts from the engine compartment (including my old engine worth at least $5000 even blown), my old brake system, basically everything. Parts I could have either sold or put back on at a later date. Mr. Knobloch has picked up from RMS whatever of those parts he could – at this point though, I still do not know what is missing – except for the old engine for sure.

The finished product being delivered with almost no horsepower increase

Below is an email sent from RMS right before they shipped the car back to me:

And on the next page is the attachment – it is a dyno chart showing my cars’ horsepower as 532 HP at the rear-wheels. This equates to approximately 611 HP at the crankshaft:

When I received my car back from RMS, I took it for a ride and was immediately extremely disappointed. Not only didn’t it feel faster, it felt slower. RMS has told me that I couldn’t floor the car in 1^st or 2^nd gear because it would just spin the tires. In fact, they even sent me a video showing the car burning a lot of rubber. Then I drive the car and nothing.

Needless to say, I was livid and I called Mr. Knobloch right away. Mr. Knobloch found out from Osh that there was a problem with drivability he was trying to track down and in his rush to get it fixed before the transport company left once again (and charged RMS again), he just started to adjust things without being able to test any of his adjustments. In other words, he was blindly changing critical settings trying to chase down one problem while doing so caused a bunch of other problems (it is important to note that Osh admitted to Mr. Knobloch at a later date that he knew he had shipped the car running very poorly.)

The next day after calling Mr. Knobloch, he sent me some software and had me make a few changes to the software that was loaded in my vehicle. These changes made a noticeable difference, but still the car did not perform as it should have. So, the next day I took the car to a local dyno shop (who uses the same brand of dyno as RMS) and had the car run on the dyno twice. The results are below and the two main things to look at are:

·        Peak horsepower (The independent tests showed 437 HP & 445 HP as the peaks of the two dyno runs, which is almost 100 HP less than claimed or promised and this was after I made the software change that Mr. Knobloch had me do!)

·        Horsepower at the lower engine speed – drastically different from the 1^st dyno run to the 2^nd dyno run (Mr. Knobloch has offered a theory on this – the water injection that cools the charge going into the engine that RMS made me add because they were afraid of the new engine blowing up – its nozzles are too big for the pump so the water injection is not consistent.)

If you look closely at the chart above and below, you’ll see that while the peak horsepower is very close from on run to the next, horsepower at lower engine speeds is drastically different – about 300 HP at 3000 RPMs

on the 1^st run and about 425 HP at 3000 RPMs on the 2^nd dyno run. You don’t need to be an engineer to see that this car runs erratically.

The lack of quality of the parts installed and of the installation itself

Besides the lack of horsepower, other areas are lacking as well, including:

·        The $3000 carbon fiber plenum/engine cover whose cracked and yellowed clear coating make the piece look like junk.

·        The high performance clutch that is so hard to press down that it is almost impossible to keep it depressed at a light. There are many high performance clutches that would be more appropriate for performance luxury sedan. Osh’s nephew Raffi Dakesian even told me on the phone that it was very stiff and that Osh was not happy with it – yet it was good enough to send to me.

·        The inner panel behind the twin kidney grills is completely missing.

·        The A/C does not function -- it worked fine when you got the car.

·        They did not install brake cooling ducts as promised and contracted for – not only that, they didn’t even return the panel under the car that they were going to install the brake ducts into.

·        One of the two horns no longer works – it might even be missing, it’s hard to tell without taking things apart.

·        The main fan belt is now rubbing against the alternator housing and has already worn off the finish on the housing and the edge of the belt is beginning to fray. Obviously, the alignment of the pulleys is wrong.

·        The exhaust gas has gone over 1300 degrees according to the gauge RMS installed, yet the warning light in the gauge never came on and Osh said it would come on at 1200 degrees.

·        The metal lower grill RMS made looks and fits like a cheap piece of junk – like something you would see on a rusted-out old pickup truck.

·        Clips are missing and broken, a rubber gasket is gone and other parts that are supposed to be new look used.

Below are some pictures:

The picture is from the RMS website                                                                                                   

You’ll note on the original estimate below that there is a strut bar mentioned. I saw it on the web picture (above) but never on my car. You know why, because it doesn’t exist. The one on the RMS web site is not theirs; it was made by another company called Dinan. I only found this out 7 months after the initial order when RMS could not get it installed in time to ship with the car. When I finally pressed Osh’s back against the wall about this part, he finally admitted that he had only designed the part and that he had never actually built it. It’s a good thing he’s not a doctor because he’d probably be selling a cure for cancer.

In this picture you can see the use of the wrong type of screw. RMS used a counter-sunk type screw here instead of a flat-head screw as they should have – and this is one you can see – what about those screws and bolts you can’t?

In this picture you can see the cracking clear coat around the bolts holding down the carbon fiber engine cover. You can also see that the clear coat is yellowed – indicating that this is an old part. This part was an extra $3000!!

In this picture you can see the ridiculous looking lower grille and an area next to the fog light where there is a missing panel.

In these pictures, you can see on the left the part that was left off in the picture on the right.

This picture shows the underside of the car where the bottom cover is gone, leaving the bottom of the engine and all fan belts exposed

This picture shows another angle and the exposed air filter and wires hanging down

And finally, this picture shows where the main fan belt is now rubbing against the alternator cover.

The total lack of value of the warranty promised by RMS

RMS has no ability to make good on the 3-year/36000 mile warranty that they have contracted with me because they have no money, period. After many conversations with Gary and Mr. Knobloch over the last seven months, I now have a clear understanding of why my car was not completed in a timely manner – it all has to do with the fact that the company is so far in debt that when they get in a new client (or victim as the case may be), they take the deposit money and use it to keep the doors open rather than to work on the vehicle. I know now that there are at least 10 vehicles stuck at RMS (some of them for over a year!) because RMS has spent their money and does not have the money to complete the projects.

A company that robs Peter to pay Paul and one that can’t even deliver on the promises it is paid for surely cannot be relied upon to be able to pay the money to live up to a warranty claim. Plus, any company that can do such poor work as RMS has on my car in the first place will not be allowed to work on my vehicle again – period. Therefore, the warranty is valueless and since it is the engine that is covered and since a remanufactured M5 engine from BMW cost $7950 for the parts alone, it’s fair to say that the value of the warranty would have been around $10000.

The financial conclusion and what happens from here

As you can see on the invoice below (which is actually incorrect because it doesn’t show my payments correctly), I do have a receipt and I have made the following payments to RMS via two different B of A Visa cards and these are the amounts that I am disputing:

Visa Debit Card:

5/27/2003 -- $15,000

6/23/2003 -- $10,000

9/29/2003 -- $6,500

Visa Credit Card:

12/5/2003 -- $4,000

I also gave them $5,000 via check, so the total I spent with RMS so far is: $40,500.

If you add up the damages that I mentioned throughout this document, you will see that it already totals approximately $45,407 – and that is before fixing anything and before buying any new parts – here’s the breakdown:

$12,407 – time delay and depreciation value

$5,000 – my old engine

$15,000 – that amount of value my car loses without the original engine

$10,000 – the value of the warranty

$3,000 – the carbon fiber engine cover

From here my car will be shipped to Mr. Knobloch’s personal shop to be fixed. This is done with RMS’ knowledge and agreement because, as I stated earlier, Osh has already admitted to Mr. Knobloch that he did a very poor job on my vehicle. Mr. Knobloch estimates that will take somewhere between $5,000 - $7,000 to get the car running (plus $2,600 in shipping charges) and looking right, but keep in mind that even in doing so, Mr. Knobloch can do nothing about the damage that may have already been done nor can he make up for any of the other financial damages. When you add the new amounts I will have to pay to the damages, I am at $55,000+ at least!

Also, in case you are wondering why I would send my car to Mr. Knobloch who has been a consultant to RMS, I do have an answer. As stated earlier, Mr. Knobloch started out as a customer of RMS. He had his car (a BMW Z8) converted to a Superfast Z8 by RMS. When his car was done, he took it back to his shop in Northern California and re-engineered many of the components. After he completed that, he took his car down to RMS and let them shoot pictures of his car for their web site. The idea was for RMS to emulate what Mr. Knobloch did to his car and for all other Superfasts to come out that way. Mine was the first car to be completed since his – and obviously, Mr. Knobloch was not happy and therefore, he has committed himself to fixing my car – again with RMS’ knowledge and agreement.

I will send you a document from Mr. Knobloch that supports this.

Thanks in advance for your help and if you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Sincerely,

Bryan Bloch