Jump to content


Photo

A Warning About Mini_kel


  • Please log in to reply
46 replies to this topic

#1 (philip)

(philip)

    previously know as pw-london

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 401 posts
  • Location: London
  • Local Club: Not yet..

Posted 30 May 2011 - 08:06 AM

I really didn't want to start a slanging match on here, and that isn't what I am trying to do, I just want to let you know some problems I've had with a forum regular Mini_Kel based in East London.

He took my car in to 'restore' and it came back to me a year overdue, having spent a year chasing him, calling him, visiting, being told countless times "it will be ready next week" On one occasion he was supposed to bring it round to me after I had lost my patience about it and contacted the Police, I texted him on a Saturday morning as arranged, and he said he was on his way, and I didn't hear from him for weeks. It was one bare faced lie after another. I think in that 12 Month period we arranged about 8 or 10 times for me to collect it, having been assured it was pretty much ready, and yeah I could collect it in a couple of days, I would then get no replies from calls or texts.

It was only when I went to the police to report my mini stolen, and got solicitors involved that he would call me. Eventually after taking legal advice and making Kel aware that he was holding my car without my permission, we arranged to pick it up.

I did wonder why he was only available at night time for me to pick it up... Having got the car home (although only just as all 4 wheels were loose and the fuel pipe was resting on the exhaust) I understood why. A really shoddy job. Paint sprayed on the windows, drips everywhere, big patches of unpolished rough paint. I was gutted. Within just a couple of weeks rust spots were coming through. I was really hoping after a year of hell with Kel, getting the actual Mini back would have made the nightmare worthwhile, but no, it was awful.

Having brought this to Kel's attention he said he would put it right, but again, time and time again he would delay me dropping it off (something I was wary about as I was worried I wouldn't see my car for another year, but solicitor said I had to give him the chance to put it right). weeks and months passed and again one excuse after another.

I was ready to take him to court, but to be honest had had enough, so have now sold my Mini.

It is really sad, because the whole nightmare experience with Kel, constantly lying, then the car being a very poor standard, has tainted the whole mini ownership experience. Every time I looked out the window I was reminded of the hassle he caused, so now it's gone.

I think the saddest thing now, is that a friend of mine is now going through exactly the same thing and his Mini is about a year overdue from a job Kel said would take a couple of weeks. It's almost laughable.

The reason I am putting this on here is to warn people. I would hate this to happen to others. Kel contacted me through the forum and I wish I had the full story about him. No doubt some will have had positive experiences with Kel, I just hope people will be well informed before they hand him keys to their car.

Edited by TheFunkyDuck, 30 May 2011 - 10:39 AM.


#2 gronkjor

gronkjor

    Mini Mad

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 250 posts
  • Location: The Kingdom of Denmark
  • Local Club: TMF

Posted 30 May 2011 - 08:10 AM

Sad story :thumbsup:

Are you going to buy another Mini?

#3 new_zealand _minis

new_zealand _minis

    Super Mini Mad

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPipPip
  • 654 posts
  • Local Club: wellington new zealand

Posted 30 May 2011 - 08:11 AM

tell you friend to get his car back from him asap if that is going to happen agian..

sucks we have scum that do that to other people ..

#4 wolfie

wolfie

    One Carb Or Two?

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • 1,149 posts

Posted 30 May 2011 - 08:25 AM

I have been messed around by him with parts i sold

Bloke is a joke and a total waste of space

I do hope that Admin leave this as the OP has been fairly restrained in his/her post (far more restrained than i would have been) and people need to know not to deal with this waster.

#5 Minisport7

Minisport7

    Stage One Kit Fitted

  • Noobies
  • PipPipPip
  • 73 posts
  • Location: London

Posted 30 May 2011 - 08:25 AM

Sad and frustrating story, sorry to hear. Hope another Mini comes along and makes you forget about it all :thumbsup:

#6 Shifty

Shifty

    Sponsored by Fosters (tm)

  • Admin
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • 13,128 posts
  • Name: Sean
  • Location: Shropshire(sunny)
  • Local Club: TMF

Posted 30 May 2011 - 02:36 PM

Sorry to hear of your troubles.

First off, can I only ask people who've had direct experience to comment, please bear in mind that this is potentially a dispute between 2 forum members and I don't want this to turn into a slanging match

Next, in the interests of fairness I will try and contact Kel to get him to put his side of the story up.

I'm also going to move this to the reviews section as well.

Finally, if the OP has any pictures of the job, that they could post up that would also be helpful.

Thanks

Shifty


#7 herbie53

herbie53

    Starting My Mini Up

  • Noobies
  • Pip
  • 1 posts

Posted 05 January 2013 - 09:14 PM

I wish I would have seen TheFunkyDuck's story "A Warning About Mini_kel" a year & a half ago, it would have saved me from a similar fate! I first met Kel & Arron in August 2011 when I drove past the garage & dropped by for a quote for my car believing they were specialists in classic cars. Arron fed me some line about how he understood that I wanted my car perfect & I fell for it hook, line, & sinker. I dropped my car off in November 2011 to have a complete respray with all my new parts fitted including headlining. Arron started on my car almost straight away so at first progress seemed fast although it wasn't long before alarm bells started ringing.

The first thing I was concerned about was the orange peel effect over the whole paint job, & there were quite a lot of drips, but I was told that this was only temporary & it would look fine after sanding & polishing. Then I noticed that my new exterior parts were being fitted before this had been fully rectified. Also my brand new parts were being stored inside various vehicles around the garage due to lack of space so I was told, & it wasn't long before items started going missing & a part got damaged & my other half & I were down there trying to rescue as many parts as we could in order to stop them getting damaged or lost & to prevent them being fitted on to the unfinished paint job. Then there was the headlining, it started falling down on the same day it was apparantly classified as finished. My other half & I then decided we were going to do the headlining again ourselves, as it couldn't possibly look worse. We agreed to take the car home with the view of returning it to be completed after we had redone the roof lining.

After many months of excuses from Arron as to why the car couldn't be finished yet, Kel finally booked it in for November 2012 with the view of it being ready a few days later. Eight weeks later after numourous excuses, many ingnored phone calls and text messages to Kel, my car is now back home in the same state it was. I finally decided that after going down there 5 evenings in a row & finding it left out the front unlocked, & complaining to Kel about it with no response, I had no option but to get my spare key & take it home before it got stolen. I am now left with a car with drips that have been rubbed down to the bare metal, a large rust patch, & orange peel effect over various parts of the car, & have paid £1,500. I can barely look at it now & I can't wait for it to be finished so I can sell what was going to be my pride & joy. My dream has turned into a nightmare!!!

#8 mattdc2r

mattdc2r

    One Carb Or Two?

  • TMF+ Member
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • 1,296 posts
  • Location: RAF Cosford
  • Local Club: Not yet!

Posted 05 January 2013 - 10:11 PM

Wow. Shocking really. Might be an idea to PM Shifty again, make him aware and see what the response was when it happened to the OP. Not that admin can get involved obviously.

#9 Joe-C

Joe-C

    Speeding Along Now

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 325 posts
  • Location: Birmingham, UK

Posted 05 January 2013 - 10:28 PM

I wish I would have seen TheFunkyDuck's story "A Warning About Mini_kel" a year & a half ago, it would have saved me from a similar fate! I first met Kel & Arron in August 2011 when I drove past the garage & dropped by for a quote for my car believing they were specialists in classic cars. Arron fed me some line about how he understood that I wanted my car perfect & I fell for it hook, line, & sinker. I dropped my car off in November 2011 to have a complete respray with all my new parts fitted including headlining. Arron started on my car almost straight away so at first progress seemed fast although it wasn't long before alarm bells started ringing.

The first thing I was concerned about was the orange peel effect over the whole paint job, & there were quite a lot of drips, but I was told that this was only temporary & it would look fine after sanding & polishing. Then I noticed that my new exterior parts were being fitted before this had been fully rectified. Also my brand new parts were being stored inside various vehicles around the garage due to lack of space so I was told, & it wasn't long before items started going missing & a part got damaged & my other half & I were down there trying to rescue as many parts as we could in order to stop them getting damaged or lost & to prevent them being fitted on to the unfinished paint job. Then there was the headlining, it started falling down on the same day it was apparantly classified as finished. My other half & I then decided we were going to do the headlining again ourselves, as it couldn't possibly look worse. We agreed to take the car home with the view of returning it to be completed after we had redone the roof lining.

After many months of excuses from Arron as to why the car couldn't be finished yet, Kel finally booked it in for November 2012 with the view of it being ready a few days later. Eight weeks later after numourous excuses, many ingnored phone calls and text messages to Kel, my car is now back home in the same state it was. I finally decided that after going down there 5 evenings in a row & finding it left out the front unlocked, & complaining to Kel about it with no response, I had no option but to get my spare key & take it home before it got stolen. I am now left with a car with drips that have been rubbed down to the bare metal, a large rust patch, & orange peel effect over various parts of the car, & have paid £1,500. I can barely look at it now & I can't wait for it to be finished so I can sell what was going to be my pride & joy. My dream has turned into a nightmare!!!


Shocking; if you haven't told him you've taken the car let him think it has been stolen see how he reacts.

#10 mike174

mike174

    BH2N Big Cheese

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPip
  • 457 posts

Posted 06 January 2013 - 12:21 AM

Please only comment if you have any direct experience inflammatory other comments will be removed

#11 Deev

Deev

    Mini Mad

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 261 posts

Posted 05 February 2013 - 06:18 PM

I'm going to add my 2 cents worth to this as I am also directly involved. I am the friend of TheFunkyDuck whose car is still being "held hostage" by Kel. I took my car there in November 2009 (yes - you read that correctly - over THREE YEARS ago) for some rebuild work that I was told at the time would take "a few weeks". I'll not bore you with the details of the excuses and bulls**t I've had over that period, but after dozens of completion dates and missed deadlines, I squared up to Kel a couple of months before Christmas and was once again given promises that I'd receive regular updates and photos on the work. (You may wonder why I haven't just taken the car back before now, but what am I meant to do with a now part-stripped down and unroadworthy car?). I did actually receive a few photos in November showing the car with new panels, and then in the spray booth having been resprayed, and since then I was contacted by Kel to tell me that I would need two tyres for the MoT which I had shipped to his garage from blackcircles.co.uk. All was sounding promising...ish?

However the first week into the new year I tried to contact Kel again. He told me that he'd be back in the garage the following week and he'd give me an update then. Since then, silence - and I'm more than a little concerned that his mobile phone is no longer responding (and hasn't been for over a week). I actually drove to his garage on Saturday (he's always worked on Saturdays in the past) to find it locked up and deserted. Also my car was nowhere to be seen (either amongst the cars strewn around the yard or in a fenced off area). I'm not really sure where to go from here. Since this debacle began I've given Kel 2 grands worth of car (it's a low mileage RSP) and about another grands worth of parts and money up front and yet now he's seemed to disappear off the face of the planet. Even if he hasn't, the reports I've seen from other people hardly fill me with confidence that I'm going to see a good quality job... eventually, if ever?

I've held off posting about this over the course of the debacle (and I have spoken to the admin of the forum about this in the past) because, probably stupidly, I've wanted to TRY to give Kel the benefit of the doubt (hell, badmouthing him so much that it ends up driving him out of business is hardly going to do me any favours) - but I think the time has come to warn people about this guy's setup before anyone else ends up in a similar situation.

If anyone has any other method of contacting Kel or any advice on how I should proceed from here, I'd be glad to hear it. This whole episode has turned what I was hoping to be happy membership of the Mini community into an utter, expensive nightmare.

#12 Jordie

Jordie

    Traders Area Specialist Mod, North and Scotland Area Manager

  • TMF+ Member
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • 13,564 posts
  • Name: Jordan
  • Location: North East

Posted 05 February 2013 - 06:22 PM

Id be ringing the police and trying to recover my property by any means possible (legally). If anything is missing, then report it to the police again and fill a small claims court summons to him. Shame you get people like this in the mini community.

#13 Deev

Deev

    Mini Mad

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 261 posts

Posted 05 February 2013 - 09:28 PM

Agreed, although keeping track of everything given to him is going to be tricky given the timescales involved and lack of written records (ah hindsight is such a wonderful thing).

#14 Deev

Deev

    Mini Mad

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPip
  • 261 posts

Posted 06 February 2013 - 03:34 PM

Okay so update - I drove over there today (despite being off work sick) and he was there. Apparently he's lost his phone and won't be getting a new one til later in the month. I could only see my car through a crack in the door of one of his lockups because he'd "left the key at home" (hmmm!) but at least it's there - although it looks in much the same state as it was when I last saw photos three months ago - masked off and sprayed up (although he assures me it has been flattened and polished since then). He claims he's going to fit it up next week and send me some more pictures. I'm a bit between a rock and a hard place really as I don't really have anywhere I can keep a stripped down car - that's one of the reasons I took it to a garage for the work in the first place.

The thing with Kel is that I don't think he deliberately tries to do anyone over but he just takes too much on at once and has absolutely no ability to prioritise things properly.

Given it's taken over 3 years to get to this stage, hopefully I'll be back on the road by 2025.

:mmkay:

#15 Bungle

Bungle

    Original Spamster

  • Members
  • PipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPipPip
  • 28,971 posts
  • Location: Cornwall
  • Local Club: cornish mini club

Posted 06 February 2013 - 03:52 PM

i would keep popping in and make my self a pain in the bum for him

hopefully this will move you up the order to get rid of you




0 user(s) are reading this topic

0 members, 0 guests, 0 anonymous users