dpatterson069

Many of you might not know me because i post mainly over at is300.net, however, i used to post here all the time in 2001-2002.

This is a message for California is300 owners who are considering using Malek as a tuner.

My tuning experience with Malek (Malekreza11)… PLEASE READ.

As some of you may have known, I have been running intake, header, and exhaust for some while. Sure the power was nice, but I always felt that at sometime or another, I would need to really tune the car to see the full potential. The header install was done at LMS and the o2 sensor was installed by Ray, a mechanic that some of you might know currently who works at Longo Toyota. The car has always run fine, except for the fact that an 05 is300 doesn’t register an o2 sensor, so there is a CEL and Trac engine light on. (I believe the current o2 sensors may solve this problem, though I might be mistaken… my o2 sensor was purchased in 2005).

As anyone on is300.net or clublexus would do, I asked around the older members about who I should turn to in order to tune my car. Many people pointed to Malek as a decent tuner, so I picked up some parts (AEM wideband, SAFC2… both new), and headed down to Malek for a tuning session.

Malek was very straight forward about the cost of everything.

AEM wide band install for $50.
SAFC2 install for $50
Malek’s black box and install for $165 ($115 for box and $50 for install).
Tuning session $70.

Everything said and done would come down to about $330 paid to Malek for all services rendered.

So, I headed down to Maleks place in Irvine (he works out of his garage) on Wednesday, January 3rd at about 10am.

As I met Malek, I paid him in advance and he assured me that the install and tuning should be done within 4-5 hours.

First problem of the day: My stock y pipe seems to have been semi stripped and the o2 sensor has a hard time coming out.

Second problem of the day: Malek has to use an air gun to get the AEM wide band o2 sensor into the stock y pipe. This takes a while.

Third problem of the day: After installing the SAFC2, AEM wideband, and Maleks black box, my car wont start… It will crank, but it will not start. He tried many options, but nothing seemed to remedy the problem.

All the installs are done at this point, yet its approaching about 5-6pm. The car still wont start.

Malek and I decide that we should take the car to a Lexus dealership. At this point, I am very concerned. Not only has the install seemed to go very poorly, but I am in Irvine, yet I live in Pasadena.. I am over 50 miles away from home!

The car is towed to Tustin Lexus where immediately the tech looks at the car and see the SAFC2, AEM wideband, and black box. He states that warranty may be voided, but they will look at it.

At this time, its about 8pm, and I am tired and wiped out from having barely eaten anything all day and waiting around. So I ask for a loaner car, which I got, and headed home.

Thursday, January 4th: I call Tustin Lexus at 8am Thursday morning, and they have stopped working on the car. I figure that I need my car to be at a closer dealership so I do the following things:

First, I called up Malek, and told him I wanted all the parts uninstalled.

Next, I headed to Tustin Lexus, and had the car towed from there to Maleks house to do all the uninstalls. He completes them by about 2pm. I ask him for a refund and he refunds me:

The price of the black box: $115
The tuning cost: $70.

Malek kept the $150 for the installation of aem wideband, safc2, and his black box.. He said that his installations of the said parts did not cause my car to not start.

Pissed, I call Lexus to tow my car to a closer dealership near my home. I wait about 1 hour and finally a flat bed shows up. The car is towed to the dealership where it is diagnosed.

Tired and cold, the Lexus dealership offers me a loaner car, and they will look at the car. I go home.

Friday, January 5th: I am still waiting to hear what is wrong with the car. The service guy calls me at about 6pm-ish and states that my warranty has been voided. He states that it will cost approximately $900 to fix/replace the wires in the ECU that have been damaged by Malek. He also asked me if I would like my y pipe replaced with a new one and new o2 sensor, but at over $1000 for that, I told him that I would have it fixed on my own.

The sheet literally says CAUSE : Engine Immobilizer system malfunctioned.

Correction: ECU wire harness damaged, immobilizer wires cut and damaged.



Saturday, January 6th: I go to pick up my car and pay the Lexus dealership.

The dealership techs said that the wiring was soldered poorly, that some wires were in the wrong spots, and one wire was even snapped/broken. They were able to fix everything and the car seems fine now, but it took them a long time to figure it all out because it was such a mess.


As you can see, I am not very happy with my tuning experience with Malek. Not only did he keep the $150 for installing parts poorly which were useless to me and didn’t work, but the dealership also charged me $920 and voided my warranty on my ECU.


Not to mention I still need a new o2 sensor for the y pipe, and a new y pipe.




I was told by many members that my experience should be posted, just as other people post their experiences at many other places with different tuners/installers. 4 days, many hours of waiting, and $920 later, I am very unsatisfied with my experience with Malek.



By the way, in a phone call to Malek recently he stated exactly:

“I have installed hundreds of safc’s, done many more complicated and elaborate jobs on other cars, and I have a minor in electrical engineering… look dude, its not my fault that your car had problems”


According to Malek, the bad wiring job done at LMS is the real reason behind my car not working. It was not his fault for causing any of the problems during any of his installs. (Yet, at NO TIME in my 1.5 years of owning the car has any problem ever occured)

And according to Malek, my problems have nothing to do with the fact that he didn’t tell me upfront that he had NEVER installed an safc2 on an 05 eshift is300 before.

I hope all of you will reconsider going to Malek for any of your installs without full knowledge of what might occur. This post is to show my experience, just as anyone would post about a dealership or service place.

ddquach

iTrader: (3)

Man, Dave I hope you get your stuff work out. Your car was running fine before Malek touch it. Good luck...

vboy418

Wow bro, Well Thanks for letting us know. Best of luck bro.

SDLexus

Thanks for the heads up. Sorry to hear about your bad experience, hopefully everything will work out in the end.

Good luck.

tsopranoMB

it wasnt his fault..

blame LUXURY MOTORWERKS....

too bad your mom made you take the car to Lexus...

http://my.is/forums/showthread.php?p=4630772

ddquach

iTrader: (3)

You know Dave stated that LMS didnt touch the car for over a year and the car ran fine. LMS install his header and o2 sim and it work fine...

becker6988

sop shutup... too bad your mom didnt teach you to drive maybe that way you could have been lucky enough not to drive that nice pretty blue car of yours into a wall

anyways moving past idiot flame remarks, sorry to hear about the damage.... i wouldnt be surpirsed if some of the damage was done by the 02 sim but damaged severely by the afc install.... Malek should have atleast refunded the money... soooo want to get rid of the wideband?