Smoky Hill Restoration Nightmare

[Stevcom]

I have been restoring a 69 Chevelle SS for almost two years with Smoky Hill Restoration in Granbury, Texas. Finally, with the help of my attorney we got the car out of Smoky Hill Restoration last month, December 07, and moved to a new shop to complete the car. Smoky Hill Restoration in Granbury, Texas would not return all of my original parts needed to complete the car so I am now being forced to find and buy many of the original parts that Smoky Hill Restoration refused to return to me. Very expensive and hard if not almost impossible to find NOS parts for this car as so many have been restored.

Smoky Hill Restoration made unreasonable demands for advance payements throughout the time my car was there and when I would give them advances they would never meet any time schedule for work on my car that they agreed too. And, when questioned they would get mad and would not take my calls. They wanted me to order all of my parts which was fine however most of the time the parts were not what we needed or would not fit what they were trying to build. On one occassion they encouraged me to send the crate 502 I purchased out to have balanced and printed for 1400.00. When the engine was ready to be picked up by them the bill was 4400.00. They told me they were surprised as well. No accountability at all.

I have found another shop in the Metroplex (Fort Worth) who is doing a great job finishing the car for me. I checked them out much better than I did Smoky Hill and have seen several of their "finished" cars. We are now in a battle to get all of my original parts back from Smoky Hill as they refused to give me all of my original exterior trim and interior parts. We have even had to file a law suit against them. Unfortunately, to keep the progress going on the car I am going to have to start buying a lot of NOS parts next week that my new builder has located so we will be relagated to other means of reimbursement from Smoky Hill.

Smoky Hill Restoration in Granbury, Texas did not seem to have any desire to ever finish my car. I cannot speak for other customers they have but in almost two years of going there I never witnessed a complete restoration leave their shop. In fact, some of their restorations have been there over three years. They never gave me a completion date for anything that they kept and every time we got something completed it was after I had raised a lot of stink. I think a lot of people who have cars there just "give up" and hope the phone doesn't ring with Smoky Hill on the other end asking or demanding more money for something but never delivering on a promise or committment.

I think that Smoky Hill Restoration sold a lot of my parts from my original car to raise money and then tried to hoodwink me into buying a lot of new aftermarket parts to replace what they sold. I say this because for several months before we got the car out of the shop I would ask about these parts and whether or not they needed to be sent out to be refinished etc. and I always got the answer that they were going through everything and would never let me look through them myself. Then, when we were able to get my car and all the new parts I had purchased guess what. No original parts.

Smoky Hill Restoration and the people who own it, Bill and Wanda Hart, are about the most dishonest people I have ever met and I have met a lot of people. I have been in business for myself for over 30 years and built several companies from scratch. This beats anything I have ever seen. My goal is to try and prevent some other person from finding themselves in the same place I was. People work hard for their money and do not deserve to be treated this way.

Thanks for reading and responding.

Steve Haines
Granbury, Texas
817-776-4320
254-631-7730

[MagicRat]

Thank you very much for the warning.
I do hope the situation improves for you in the future.

I moved this thread to Dealer Experiences at it is a more appropriate forum for this subject.

[Stevcom]

Thanks for allowing me to post and for your moving the thread to the appropriate area. I just want to try and prevent others from falling prey to this company.

Steve

[SmokyHill]

Wow. Mr. Haines has been spreading this story around to every media outlet possilbe, that doesn't require any sort of proof.

I welcome anyone and everyone to come by our shop, or give us a call and ask us about Mr. Haines. We would be more than happy to show anyone the countless SIGNED invoices and contracts from Mr. Haines, as well as a complete breakdown with pictures of the work we did to his car.

We currently have over 20 projects in our shop, and we work on a rotating schedule (meaning that "x" amount of time is allotted to each vehicle per week. This was described, in detail, to Mr. Haines, and his signature verifies that this was discussed. We will also be putting the ENTIRE set of progress pictures back on our website shortly. We NEVER removed them due to his "legal actions." We are having the site re-designed, and it simply takes time to switch everything over.

We will happily give you the details on his so-called "legal action," and how well that didn't work for him.

I also encourage you to call up Mr. Haines and ask him about his car's progress now. He pulled his car from our shop because we just weren't working fast enough to suit him (we wouldn't drop everything for him.) Yet, his car still remains uncompleted at his new shop of choice.

We have absolutely nothing to hide, and have several satisfied customers (most of which have even brought in additional vehicles for us to restore.)

Steve Haines is the only person who has ever had a problem with our work, but he is doing his best to slander our good name. People in this area seem to know the truth however, because we are busier than we have ever been. In fact, we had to add an additioan building to our facility (making the total of 5 buildings) just to house all of our projects!

We will also be attending the Good Guys Lonestar Nationals in Fort Worth Texas in October. We encourage everyone to stop by and take a look at our work, as we will have multiple vehicles to show.

We are located at 5439 Old Granbury Rd, Granbury TX 76049, and our phone is 817-910-2955. Give us a call or come on out.

[Stevcom]

I think anyone considering using this shop should go by the Harts facility to see what they have to offer and see their examples of completed work. You should then give me a call and let me explain my experience with them. I can also provide you with a list of names and contact informaton of other previous Smoky Hill customers and former employees who have contacted me with similar, if not worse, experiences.

Steve Haines
817-776-4320
[email protected]
Granbury, Texas

['97ventureowner]

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