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Dear fellow club members

I have decided to write to all of you because I am very p****d off, very frustrated and I feel it may be beneficial to existing and new club members that may be thinking of using the engine building services of Mr Gerry Johnstone.

My name is Tibor, I live in SE London and have owned a Vauxhall of some description for over 10 years. The cars looks and racing history have always interested me. My first Vauxhall was a HC Viva, which I owned for about four years. During its life, the mechanics were upgraded with a new GM engine, a recon gearbox and a new axle. It was then that the opportunity arose to purchase a HS Twin Cam head. I obviously snapped up the offer with the intention of putting it to use when finances allowed. After lots of miles, TLC and good times, a low life decided that he would spend a few moments of his miserable life to knife my tyres, punch in the windows and key the paintwork. Since money was short and enthusiasm was running dry, my pride and joy was stripped down and the shell taken to car heaven.

In November 1989, while reading a car magazine, a picture of a gleaming red Vauxhall Firenza fitted with a full Old-Nail body kit caught my eye. I was in love. The following weekend I met the owner, examined the car and agreed a price of £1500. The car came with a standard 2.3 OHC engine, an automatic gearbox (replaced later by an overdrive item) and a lightly modified Old-Nail body kit finished in Porsche Guards Red. This was my new pride and joy and was to be the car on which I would spend my limited time and hard earned cash on.

After a few months driving, the time had come to find someone who could undertake the job of converting my Firenza into something special. I obviously took the time to find a person with a suitable background, good references and plenty of experience for the job. You can imagine my excitement when I was told of a man with links to the Vauxhall racing teams of the past, and with years of experience working on HS Chevettes, Vivas and Firenzas. His name was Mr Gerry Johnstone. A man with such credentials would not be cheap, but he sounded ideal. I had to meet this man...!

I arranged a meeting with him at his workshop in Cambridge to discuss what I wanted from the car. I explained that I wanted a performance car that would be reliable enough for day to day use and that I did not mind sacrificing a few BHP to accomplish this. He seemed to Know his stuff, but his listening skills and ability to concentrate on what I was telling him left a lot to be desired. A while later, we came up with a list of modifications and additions to my car which included :

- Front brake disks upgraded to vented 2.0i Cavalier items

- Callipers to match the above

- Uprated and lowered springs

- Bilstein shock absorbers all round

- Getrag 5 speed gearbox

- Modified prop shaft for above

- Engine rebuild from the best of two engines provided by me

- Twin Cam head work

- Twin 48 Dellortos

- Modified exhaust system

Grand total plus labour........................£3000.

A deal was made. I had to find a little more cash than I had accounted for but I felt that it would be worth it. So at the beginning of September 1992, I delivered the car and spare engine to Cambridge together with a deposit, and looked forward to the day I would drive it home again in all its glory.

Two months passed and I rang Mr Johnstone for progress report. His reply was : "I am waiting for some parts at the moment. As soon as they arrive, work will begin. "OK. Fair enough." I thought to myself. The months had gone quickly anyway and the last thing that I wanted to do was pressurise him into a rush job. However, when four months had passed and another phone call revealed that the work was nowhere near finished, I started to wonder if I had chosen the right man for the job. On the few occasions that I telephoned Mr Johnstone, I received very little feedback from him. His level of interest in my project always seemed minimal, considering that it was worth Three Thousand pounds to him.

A couple of visits and mere "six months" after the delivery of the car, I got the OK to come and collect it. The impression that most of the work seemed to have taken place within the last two months worried me a little, but the excitement of finally getting my car back pushed the worries away.

I drove the car home and could definitely feel the difference that my three thousand pound had made to the car. My first impressions were good, but my nightmare was just beginning....!

As the power of the engine had now been considerable increased (so I thought), I intended to strengthen the rear suspension arms and upgrade the bushes to improve the road handling of the car. Whilst carrying out this work, I was amazed to find that my "New Bilstein Shock Absorbers" were in fact rusting second hand Koni shocks. A phone call to Mr Johnstone revealed that he could not get any Bilsteins due to the company supplying them going into receivership. As far as the engine went, my first noticeable problem was overheating. I put this down to the timing error that would be corrected on a final tune-up. I checked the thermostat anyway and found that it opened and closed OK. So with this in mind and knowing that a lot of my driving would be around town, I upgraded the radiator capacity to three cores. This and a new Kenlowe fan cost me £300. (It was later found that the thermostat fitted was the wrong type).

After two months and 200 miles of motoring, the engine developed an oil leak and things didn't feel quite right. I returned to Cambridge for a tune-up and oil seal replacement and left with a bill for £80.

In August, after just six months and 500 miles of local driving and a journey to the club AGM, the engine throws number one spark plug. Apparently this is a common problem with the aluminium twin cam head. If this is so, is it unreasonable to assume that preventative action should have been taken by Mr Johnstone during the engine build ? Another trip to Cambridge and a £180 solved the problem. A month later, noisy tappets and erratic performance led to another trip to Cambridge. I arrived early morning and left at around 5pm with a bill for £100. This time I only got a couple of miles up the road before things went wrong. The engine died at a round-about and would not start again. (I guess this is where the valve damage occurred). I rang Mr Johnstone's Garage but there was no answer. My last resort was to call the RAC who managed to get it going again. Four hours and two breakdowns later, I made it to Leicester for a friends wedding.

After an unpleasant journey home, I rang Mr Johnstone for his opinion. He said that nothing they had done could have caused the breakdown. (Oh really....!) He put it down to a faulty fuel pump or regulator. So on his advice, a brand new Facet Red Top pump and regulator was fitted. It didn't make the slightest bit of difference.

By this time the insurance premium was due and for some reason I didn't have the money to pay it....! The car ended up being of the road for five months and I had to rely on a friend for his lifts to and from work. This gave me and my bank account a much needed rest.

I would like to point out that at this time the car had covered a mere 800 Miles, out of which 400 Miles were covered just going back and forth to Mr Johnstone. In March of the same Year, after a good service and weekly engine turn-overs, I took the nightmare on four wheels to "Airey Tuning" for an unbiased opinion of the engines condition. To put me in the mood for what was about to come, his first words were :

"Oooohh. One of your valves doesn't sound too healthy....!" 

It turns out that the spark plugs were the incorrect type, the engine was starved of fuel at high revs and the engine was only running on two and a half cylinders. His immediate recommendations were to inspect the exhaust valves and cylinder head gasket. By this time I had come to the conclusion that the engine needed a complete overhaul to solve all my problems once and for all.

The next weekend, I requested the engine be stripped down and inspected by a respected Vauxhall Engineer. (I no longer respected Mr Johnstone....!) It turned out that the inlet manifold was the incorrect type, compression's were less than average due to sloppy fitting pistons (compression test on No.3 was 0), valve clearances were too tight, piston crowns were not pocketed, exhaust valves were burnt out, the thermostat was the wrong type.............

All this wrong and the engine had yet to cover a 1000 Miles. To cut a too-long-story short, it was not worth £3000.

So after a second and third opinion, and a serious re-think on my situation, I came to the conclusion that my pride and joy could be a bottomless pit for money. To remedy all that was wrong with the engine would have meant spending nearly the same amount of money that I gave Mr Johnstone to do the job the first time around....! I am disgusted and feel very cheated by this man.

To summarise, Mr Johnstone has left me with no car, an empty bank account and nothing to show for it but this horror story. The remains of my engine have since been sold to the club in the hope that the component parts may be of use for future projects.

If my situation was due to an error that I had made, I would feel a little better about the money that I have lost. However, because it is due to the poor quality workmanship and unprofessional attitude of a man that I trusted my car and money to, it makes the pill very hard to swallow.

The purpose of this letter is to broadcast the message that if anyone is thinking of modifying their Vauxhall, please think long and hard before employing the services of Mr Gerry Johnstone.

Yours knowingly,

Tibor Ihasz

(Membership No. 1702)