Hello everyone, new poster here! I'm the proud new owner of a 2008 GT2 Turbo, and I want to make it fast! I grew up around old 911's and 930's, and I've always been a bit of a speed nut!

I've looked around, and seen a few people talk about Akram at Motorwerks of Houston, and I just want to get some input from you guys on whether or not he's reliable. On here he seems to be the 'go-to' guy, but in talking in person to a few people I've heard that he takes months if not years to finish cars, and when he does he just farms them out to other shops...part of me feels like that's just some crabby customers, but have any of you guys had any issues with him taking forever on your cars?

Also, I mentioned to my cousin that I was considering taking the car there, as he's owned a few Porsches, and he ran their address through some database that he has (he works for the government) and said that the Motorwerks shop at 5704 Southwest Freeway, Houston TX, 77057 is currently under surveillance by the Secret Service for ATM and credit card fraud, and that they even raided the shop a few months back! Some of the links related to the sting are http://www.click2houston.com/news/28454592/detail.html and http://krebsonsecurity.com/tag/jason-lall/ , and it's scary because I even remember one of the guys I talked to at Cars and Coffee mentioning the name John Paz as a good friend of Sunil, the owner of Motorwerks!

I figure since several of you guys speak highly of them, there must be something to them - after all, if they're under surveillance by the government, I guess if my car gets stolen from there the government will know about it! haha...


So should I go ahead and take the plunge, and take the car there and get them to start making it FLY?

Thanks fellas!

 

Do a quick search on this board for 'Akram' and you will find others who know of, or have used the company before.

 

Try Steve Ott at Drivers Source. I have heard good things about Akram and Steve. Both have had cars at the Texas Mile.

 

I did a search, and I did come up with a few things about him...as I said in my original post, I've heard different things in person about them than I've read on here, and I wanted to clarify...

I wasn't able to find a 'tell us your Motorwerks experience thread!' on here, maybe you'd care to point me towards one?

 

Who would have thought that 'Akram installed a kit on my car and it works great!' wouldn't be the end-all....how long did it take? How's the car running months later?

I assumed that a forum of this caliber, for these types of cars, would warrant more than a 'use the search feature!' answer, ESPECIALLY when I DID use the search feature, and wasn't able to find what I'm looking for! You guys aren't any better than the Honda Civic forums.

 

But then again, maybe I should just go ahead and go spend $24,000 on a Switzer kit without doing any research on the people installing it first...I mean, if two people on an internet forum had good experiences, then the other stories I've heard about them SURELY have to be false!

 

If you have to search that hard pick another shop is my advice. There are tons on here with a large customer base.

 

If this shop is under surveillance by the Secret Service, your friend should not have told you about it, and you certainly should not have announced it on a public forum. There is either a lot more to this, or this is false information.

 

Isn't the best way to find out whether or not something is true or false to ask about it?


Isn't that what I'm doing?



So many people on here know about them, I figured maybe someone could chime in with 'Yes, that happened, but here's what actually went down, and you don't have anything to worry about!'; or 'No, that never happened, it's not true! Don't worry about it!'....or (and hopefully not) the opposite, and someone that's in the know could pipe in and say 'something shady did happen, and you should take your car elsewhere'.

If there's nothing to worry about and they ARE honest and reputable, then I want to take my car there! I don't see anything wrong with asking a legitimate question to find out if they can be trusted!!!!

 

Also, Akram does not visit the forums. So you will never see a defense from him. There are always two sides to a story.

 

Drive up 45 and visit the guys at RAC.

 

I was actually working there as a technician when the secret service officers came in and served Sunil a seizure warrant. They searched the premises and confiscated a 3d printer. That us employees were told was to be used to "prototype parts". Yeah sure

 

If the information in your original post is correct, I would go somewhere else. You can even ship your car to the shop of your choice, depending on how much work you were planning on.

Even if the only issue is their lengthy down time, that alone would be enough for me to go somewhere else. I want my car in my garage, not someone else's. There is a similar shop in my area where the guy is reputed to be the best, most meticulous Porsche mechanic for hundreds of miles. He takes forever though! I have heard weeks just for an oil change sometimes. In this case, I don't care if he is the best or not. I would rather take my car 100 miles away to a shop that works efficiently, still does GREAT work, and works with me. Sometimes you just have to travel, or go to extra lengths to get to the right people.

 

I have been asked by a Mod I respect to weigh in on this.

Akram worked on my cars for several years and, when it comes to quality work is as good as you will find. The last round of mods an my GT2 were done by Akram almost 2 years ago and the car has been running strong since (at 620 plus on pump gas, and nearly 800 on C16).

However there have been serious issues.

Lets be clear, I do not believe that Akram or Sunil are crooks, thieves, or dishonest. I don't think they would engage in credit card fraud.

Having said that, I have had some serious problems. These problems or not of the fraud category, but of the ego category.

On Oct 4th of last year, my wifes car (actually it was my car that I gave to her, an E350) was in an accident. I took the car to MWerks and Sunil concluded that the car was too damaged to repair. However my insurance company claimed that someone at MWerks took a hammer to my cars engine. I defended Moterwerks to the end, for 9 months even threatening to hire an attorney to fight what I thought were outrageous charges.

 

However, before engaging in litigation, my insurance company showed my attorney before and after pictures that were absolutely irrefutable: Someone had indeed taken a hammer to the motor! I went through ayear of anguish over this, and I am still trying to settled the issue. I have finally agreed to a settlement wher I am loosing about $6K in diminished value (this is my insurance company, Amica's fault, they are completely dishonorable...they are also going after MWerks).

Again, lets be very clear; I absolutely do not believe that Akram or Sunil would do such a thing! What I do believe, is that it was one of their disgruntled employees. I would bet that that is also behind the credit card issue.

The larger question is, why are people so pissed off? I think that can be answered.

We all know that modding cars take time, even the best shops take longer than expected, however Mwerks has exacerbated this problem by continually taking on more work than they can handle. I speculate that they do so because they feel that they are the best shop in Houston for high end high performance cars and, there is some legitimacy to that claim. But like I said, I think it has gotten out of hand.