Has anyone here ever taken Brett Bowers to court?
 

Hey guys. I'll try to make this brief. I'm going to take Brett Bowers to small claims court and wondered if anyone here has ever tried before and if so how did it go? I'll recount my Bowers horror story below if anyone is interested. Thanks.

I bought an engine from Bowers this spring and it seeme like my experience was similar to a lot of other peoples with him. It took eiht weeks longer than promised, didn't have the cam I requested, blew out an oil galley plug the first time I fired it up, etc.

Once I got all the initial problems sorted out, it ran allright, but never made the power it should have. It also had a lot of engine noise which I thought was valvetrain, no matter how many times I readjusted to valves, it never got quiet. I told Bowers all of this of course, and he said he'd come and listen to it sometime, but it never happened.

After the racing season was over, I pulled ht engine and started to take it apart. I found that it has about 35 thousandths piston to wall clearance and the noise was the pistons hitting the heads as they were rocking around so much in the cylinders.

It also has a lot gouges on the pistons from valves tagging them, but I'd like to think I know if I did that, plus my valves look pristine, so as near as I can figure, he put some used pistons in my engine. Needless to say, the piston are now junk from all the wear on the skirts and the block doesn't look to pretty either.

I'm not going to bother giving him a chance to make it right since I'd have a about a .001% chance so my only legal recourse now is to sue him.

I am not familiar with the laws in Colorado, but in most states you must afford the seller the opportunity to correct a transaction, whether it is a service or a product. By filing a claim against the seller without allowing them to first "fix it", chances are the court will rule that you must return the product for repairs, or incur the repair expense yourself. Again, I do not know the procedure in your state, but I suggest contacting someone who does.

I believe the opportunity for him to come listen to it but not showing up would be a reasonable oportunity for him to have made it right, if it could be proven that he passed on the opportunity...

Yes you have to give him the opertunity to make things right....I do beleive that he told you he would come and listen to it..BUT...do you have that in a form of an email or some other form of it being in writing?...or was it just word of mouth...if it was word of mouth then its your word against his..does this engine builder live far from you?....can you take him the motor and drop it off for him to inspect?...The court will tell you that you should have sent him back the engine as soon as you found that there might be a problem with the engine.

All engine builders will tell you that warranty starts at there front door...not yours....Sorry but this is the law...its not to fare but thats just the way it is.

It seems you have given him every opportunity and he has done nothing.

Take him to court.
If your engine was shipped to you and your in another state, you can sue him in your home state and he will have to come to you.

With the problems he has had even if you get a default judgement (he doesn't show) you will have a hard time getting any monry out of him.


My advice is find a competent builder local, get the engine repaired and chalk it up to a bad experience.

Sorry you fell prey to a bad deal.
The internet is full of them.

Pay him a not so friendly visit with a baseball bat. Just don't get caught.

I've tried to contact him plenty of times, but he's impossible to get a hold of. The baseball bat thing has occured to me but that will be a last resort.