EAG, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

could you share which mechanic you used to correct the issues in your car?

 

I may be out of line saying this because I have no skin in the game, but it sounds like the only positive press from the “new” EAG has been from the new EAG themselves.

 

The owners complaining about not getting their cars back would imply that. There are also literally thousands of machine shops to choose from in the US alone.

Sent from my toilet using FerrariChat.com mobile app

 

Isn't that a bit of a tone-def response? Or are you simply willing to have X% of your Customers have nightmare experiences because most are happy?

Granted, you're not curing cancer (definitely wouldn't want an Oncologist with that playbook), but you're dealing with a passionate group who expect you to share that passion with them. Most of us enjoy sports cars because they enrich our lives in a number of ways. To remove that passion with false promises and opaque practices is robbing them of something that should simply be a gratuitously enjoyable part of their lives, which they are trusting you with as custodians of their cars. Your company doesn't seem to appreciate that, or at least you don't project that.

With regard to the V12s, the interpretation of the situation on the surface is that many have been waiting for two years, despite EAG having taken full deposits on these cars (presumably without a path to execute given the egregious delays), and after an excruciating wait, several are now being delivered with issues. There are inconsistencies in the narrative regarding parts production (first you were ordering 200 kits from China, then making them in house - did you abandon the overseas packages altogether or are you selling through those before using your in-house packages?) and the cable vs rods debate (first you said cables because you think are superior to Ferrari rods, then you produced rods)... all without clear communication or rationale.

So to say that your unhappy customers aren't telling the full picture, you might want to look in the mirror.

 

As CEO, do you think you should take responsibility for your operation? You are your company. You did step in mid-storm, but it's been almost 6 months and of the few V12 cars you recently started to deliver, a meaningful percentage of Customers are having significant problems. Those problems being valid could be interpreted as making it worse when you are saying "some owners complaining does not tell nearly all of the picture" because you're defending your work despite acknowledging that it's subpar in these cases. If those customers had agendas to sabotage or manipulate reality, then you would be correct - however they are valid complaints about the final product.

How are you taking accountability for the Customers who have left their cars with you for years only to get them back with immediate needs to remediate? Are you going to tell them most of the work happened before you were there? Did you road test the cars adequately? Is it the parts? Was it just oversight from being too busy?

Were false promises not being made well before last week? Dan Hs 575, Bamamans 599, Kents 575, Andy's 599, amongst others others who lost years with their cars over false promises. Those were issues the minute you stepped into your role, and you've been piloting the business for almost 6mos... but you let go of somebody last week? That's a nice symbolic gesture, but why weren't these cars and their owners tended to well before that?

What deposits are you requesting? What are you charging for V12 kits?

My understanding is that your pipeline is backed up like crazy - if you weren't working late days and weekends, it would add insult to injury for your committed customers. Couldn't you just be passionate about averting legal crises, rather than delivering for the community?

If you start at 7:20, you're in the video saying everything is cables for 575/599/612 (and obviously V8s) and that you placed an order "for a ton of cables" (after saying you've order 200 599 kits from overseas). This was 5 months ago. Dan's 575 had been with you for almost 2 years (or so?) at that point, and while leather work takes some time, I recall the main dependency being development of the cables. Then, 5 months later his car is delivered with rods. He posted videos and your rod setup doesn't appear to be sorted.

 

Yes I have been taking to Josh for almost a week now but still do not have an update on my Ferrari 599.

 

Here are some pictures of some of the car parts that all the fuss is about. In January of this year I started collecting the parts needed to convert my '05 612 from F1 to gated six. The total cost has been about $18,000. The first picture shows the major components of my collection as of today, lying next to my car in roughly the same orientation as the eventual installation.

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The second and third photos show the parts that, according to Ferrarichat member @brogenville (Robin), might come in contact with the torque tube. Robin says the cure is to cut down the threaded studs on one side of each of the rubber isolators, and use a pair of thin nuts in place of the OEM bronze nuts to attach the isolators to their bracket. (Here is an episode from the Youtube channel "JayEmm on Cars" showing Robin's personal 612 performing flawlessly.)

Speaking of Robin, it was he who designed and fabricated the shifter tower and gate, as well as the stubby part the rod assembly. The rods themselves are OEM Ferrari, as are the isolators and the bronze nuts. I think Robin uses some OEM parts for the internals of the shifter tower, but I don't know for sure.

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The fourth picture is the final piece of the puzzle, the cover plate or actuator plate which will replace the F1 "squid" on the transaxle. This photo is Robin's prototype. I am waiting on the delivery of a production piece, at which point I'll be ready to start wrenching

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My $0.02 is that EAG has unnecessarily gone down a rabbit hole, pursuing a cable shifter system for the 599, rather than simply clearance the shifter rod and the torque tube. But what do I know? For fun, at the 20:40 mark in this Youtube video you can see some footage of one of the first ever EAG 599 conversions, in which EAG used a shifter rod and got a very bad result. This car subsequently turned up on Cars & Bids. The Cars & Bids listing includes an EAG invoice in the amount of $84,990. The Cars & Bids listing also indicates that the owner had to pay a California shop called Francorchamps of America an additional $19,551 to perfect EAG's work. According to the Youtube video, a San Antonio shop called Nomad Engineering also worked on the car post-EAG.

 

Didn’t this 599 use OE parts?

So who finished off the car? Francorchamps or Nomad?

 

The EAG invoice, dated January 20, 2020 (copy attached), states in detail EAG's representations that it would use nothing but OEM Ferrari parts in the conversion of this car (serial number 151605). My experience in January-June 2023, trying to round up as many OEM parts as I could for a 612, makes me doubt this was even possible in January 2020. (For one thing, Ferrari made 199 gated six 612s but only 30 599s. How many spare parts would Ferrari have ordered for a 30 unit model run? Not many. For another, January 2020 was the final month before the Covid era and its well known supply chain issues.)

In the video that I linked to in Post #118, posted to Youtube in August 2021, the three Nomad guys describe how they were contractors to EAG and were personally responsible for 70 EAG gated six conversions that weren't 599s. In their final days with EAG the conversion of #151605 was their project. For undisclosed reasons they exited their relationship with EAG and EAG released the car to the customer in the undriveable condition depicted at the 20:40 mark in the Youtube video. While the guys are talking about their IP interests in this conversion, the video, at the 3:55 mark, flashes two CAD images of an actuator plate and a shifter tower, (screen caps attached) implying that these parts were incorporated in the conversion of #151605. This suggests further that an all-Ferrari conversion of #151605 was not attempted.

The Nomad guys, in this August 2021 Youtube video, represent that they perfected the work they began at EAG. Yet in March 2022 the owner was shelling out an additional $19,551 to Francorchamps of America in Costa Mesa, CA. (Invoices attached.) The Francorchamps invoices state that the parts supplied by them included both of the long shift rods; the connector (that is now NLA; I got the unit I'll be using on my 612 from an Ebay seller in Hong Kong); the rubber isolators; and a custom built center console. We'll never know why Francorchamps replaced the shifter rods and connector that Nomad used, but Francorchamp's use of the OEM isolators suggests that the Nomad guys did not use Ferrari's isolator design. (My guru Robin advises that the isolators are the parts most likely to contact the 612's torque tube.) If so, the noise/vibration/harshness from this deletion may have been the problem with the car when it arrived at Francorchamps. In any event, it appears that it was Francorchamps which finally produced a driveable car. By the way, #151605 was a no-sale at $221,500 in the Cars & Bids auction, but the website of the seller's agent, Ferraris Online (Mike and Michelle Shaughnessy), states that the car has been sold.

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I assume this is the car.

 

"By the way, #151605 was a no-sale at $221,500 in the Cars & Bids auction, but the website of the seller's agent, Ferraris Online (Mike and Michelle Shaughnessy), states that the car has been sold."

A double check on the names in the quote above may be appropriate.

 

The center console gives it away. So even if it did have OE Ferrari shifter parts, the center console is custom and will not have the indistinguishable appearance of OE.


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One of our distinguished forum members drove that car while Sheehan had it, which was after EAG, Nomad, and Francorchamps tried to get the conversion right. His feedback was that it did not drive well.