BAD ENGINE IMPORTER - BEWARE!!!!

jacob

New member
I apologize, I am not sure where this should go - but I want everyone to be warned!

Hello.

I will have more information as soon as I have time, but I wanted to put it out there that NO ONE should do business with Japan Direct Motors of Burlington, WA. Website is www.japandirectmotors.com and eBay ID is time2show_54 but he just changed it to jdmenginewarehouse on November 11th.

They charged my credit card for a supposed in stock JDM 3sGTE on 10/15 and have been just telling stories and lies up until today, when I was told to go f$@k myself (a quote) and that I would not be getting my $2046 back (that I have been paying interest on since 10/15).

The owner of the business it a Robert J Caratello (might have spelled that wrong) and is a very shady character. I recently spoke with his business partner who told me a lot of nasty things about him, and recommended I just seek help with my credit card company. I really don't have time for all of this, but I have no choice. Been trying to get this car going for months now, my only crime is trying to buy an engine. I know nothing about buying a used engine from an importer. This guy was the only one that I found that would send me compression specs, spoke English and returned clear concise emails, and they had good feedback on eBay (at the time) so I went with them.

Now I am a statistic, and my car continues to sit.
 

Gary

Moderator
That sucks! :shoots:
Most likely, you will get your money back but time has already been wasted. I really like to see another 1993 back on the road. What's your plan now? Have you looked into Jarco in Georgia?
 

jacob

New member
Yeah, time and money has been wasted. If I get my $2046 back I will consider myself lucky at this point. I just looked at the website and noticed he just put up a "Refund Policy effective March of 04" I assume in an effort to make it look like I knew the engine was never here in the states and etc so he can fight the charge reversal. The engine was sold to me as an IN STOCK item, in fact I have a fax in my hand with compression specs signed by their in-shop mechanic saying he tested "my engine" with a snap-on tester in a controlled environment....

I also noticed that he took his address off his wesite, and there is no longer a record of his business in Yahoo Yellow Pages. How did he do that? Fortunately I have already noted his address from a previous search. I am told he hasn't shown up there for 2 days though. Also, the number listed on the website is his personal cell phone. I called it, and got his message. I left a message asking him to call me back, and of course I have not heard anything. It should be noted that he also has 4 eBay ID's, 3 of which are in bad standing and no longer active. The current one had the name changed to something ambiguous like "jdmengineimporter" or something as of 11/11/04. This guy is a real work of art.

Japan Direct Motors/www.japandirectmotors.com
980 Fountain St, Burlington, WA 98233

The fellow's name is Robert James Caratello and I am told he is planning on opening a new business of similar nature in the Tacoma area. I assume he is planning on carrying on the same. He was described to me as a pudgy 23 yr old punk who likes to tell stories about his grandmother or mother in the hospital as a reason for problems. Not sure what that's all about. All of this info came from his business partner who by his record is also owed thousands and is very pissed at this guy. He was happy to give me all kinds of information about the guy, as well as what kind of car he drives and his business license number.

I have sent my damaged head to a local shop who my friend has had good experiences with, and as soon as I can raise additional money or get my chargeback - I will be buying a Toyota 3S-GTE $hortblock. There is nofa king way I am EVER dealing with another engine importer ever. Period.

I was behind schedule in Sept when the local engine builder I was trying to get a JDM motor from killed me with 3 months od "I'll have one for you in 2 weeks." Now, I am to the point where there is no way I can finish the car before my move across the Pacific, where I was planning to take it with me, and I have no idea what to do but keep trying. I love this car, and I hope it knows. ;)

With any luck and less seedy people, I will one day be able to drive this car again...

-Jacob
 

jacob

New member
Found his eBay name again - it's actually "jdmenginewarehouse" now but he has taken all his auctions off. The last feedback is bad, same deal as mine only that guy paid w/ a money order so he is shafted. I emailed him from eBay and he got me back, also saying that he has friends in the area that are gonna "pay him a visit" or something.

Haha, maybe we should have a meet? j/k of course.

-Jacob
 

MrWOT

New member
Call the cops on him, or better yet, report him to the FBI, they love to make publicized examples out of dip$hits like that. Refer them to his previous business partner so they can get a good description of the jackass. At this point he's up to at least grand larceny so he's looking at some decent time behind bars, send his ass up the river. :smokes: :shoots:
 

CodingParadox

New member
I bought an MR2 clip from time 2 show back at the end of the summer. It took them forever to ship it to me (30 miles away,) and it was incredibly damaged and had everything but the essentials stripped from it. Then, after saying the shipping was paid for, 2 months later I got a 220$ bill in the mail from them for shipping. I'm still sitting on this deciding how to best tell them to go fuck themselves, since the shipping company is different from time 2 show.

Yeah, never ever use time 2 show. They suck ass.
 

jacob

New member
Wow, just wow.

I don't think I will ever understand why crap like this happens.

Thanks for the info, suggestions and ideas everyone. I am crossing my fingers that this ends up happy.

-Jacob
 

gpmarzan

New member
hearing these stories makes me just wanna :shoots: somebody. ive read articles about how importers would open up a new named business, collect money from people, and shut down the business and just start the same thing with a different name. people like that really needs to die. I too had trouble when i got my jdm engine. i got it from naganojapanese.com. like you jacob, it was my first ever attempt of purchasing an engine. i saw the price on their site and called them up to see whats included (tranny, ecu, harness, ect..) the guy said that it includes the turbo, tranny, ecu and an uncut wiring harness all for 1500 shipped! seemed like a great deal so i went for it. took them that same day to take my money out of my account (talk about quick with cash). i had to bug em all the time just to get an update on the shipping. i think it took 2 weeks for it to arrive at my door.

the engine arrived. i was overly excited that i didnt notice that the tranny was missing till my dad pointed it out. spun turbine in the turbo but it was seized!! i was so pist. gave them assholes a call and complained. he said that the tranny isnt included in the deal and i argued that its the reason why i got the engine in the first place because of the complete package deal. they gave in and said that they will ship me my tranny and a turbo but i had to pay the shipping (100 bucks). week later the tranny came. just my luck, NO TURBO!!..at the time i was so damn pist. bitched at them on the phone about it and the dude was saying that the turbo should be there. i said i would send them pics of the damn packaging and prove that the turbo is not included. they gave in and said they would send me one and call me when its shipped. after a week, no calls. i gave them a call and told them whats up. he spoke to his boss and his boss told him that i need to ship out the broken turbo before they send me a new one. (wtf! they shouldve told me this a week before) 30 bucks to send my turbo out and another week till i got my turbo. turbo came in..just my luck, its a single entry turbo!!!! i was like fuck it, and just used parts from the stock engine of my 88 alltrac. yup, thats my horror story.

ps. the harness was cut like no other. no afm, no fuse box. cut from the ecu and from the fuse box so i was left with just wires.
 

SuperWhite92

New member
It's lame that people like this exist.

When I bought my JDM engine, I was very scared that I would get one of these importers. I took care to research every one of them, and came up with a few to avoid, like nippon-motors. However, there were two companies that I decided would be the best. One was Total Boost, a Famous Honda Engine company, and the other was a company called JDM, inc, who had byfar the best price on the engine.

When I contacted Total Boost, they said all this great stuff about their return policy, etc, such as a 0% restocking fee, etc, etc, but that they couldn't get a celica engine for 6 weeks. I needed the engine now, so to my second choice

I contacted JDM, Inc out of Quebec, and found that they had a Celica motor in stock for $1000+shipping. Damn, I thought, it must be destroyed. I asked the guy (Wais Ilyasi) for photos anyways, and two hours later, I had 8 5-megapixel photos in my inbox. This impressed me beyond all belief, and I decided that it was a legitamate company. I went ahead and placed my order, total came to 1383 with shipping via YELLOW freight.

So the engine arrives to my house 5 days later. As I help the truck driver unload it, he makes a comment about how this is the best packaged engine he'd ever seen, and how they shrink wrapped it so that nothing would fall off. I was even more impressed at this point, and so once we got the engine undone, I of course ripped into it. Everything was included. I got the Engine, which showed exact compression numbers to what JDM had provided me with, had the tranny still attached, the entire intake path was still there, including the AFM, and the turbo was still attached. The axles, driveshaft, and harness had been cut, but I honestly expected this on such an uncommon motor. Plus, they packaged the ECU with the engine as well, even though I had no need for it, since the motor was from a 1991.

The only things wrong with the engine were a broken cam gear, a broken timing-belt cover, and a twisted shift-linkage on the tranny. Good thing I had another motor to pull these parts from, not to mention other parts, which changed from 1991 to 1992.

All in all, I was extremely happy with my purchase, and the company with which I purchased it from. Maybe I just got lucky when I picked my importer.

In any case, there are a lot of companies out there waiting to scam you on stuff like this. Try your best, and if that doesn't work, head straight to the authorities.
 

smc252

New member
I had a similar incident for the same ammount of money. Actually TWICE I got fucked over well over $2000 each time. One of them is Christopher Mounivong from Canada, haven't "dealt" with him yet. The other is sitting in fucking jail, arrested by the FBI thanks to me and several others he ripped off. His name is Michael from EuroPersona.com which better still be down. I still have yet to recieve a dollar from either of these two fucks and am nutty enough to fly out to Canada if I had the cash. I have an offer and that is 15% of the money Chris Mounivong owes me will go to the person does me a favor and knocks on his door. I have his address and phone number and if anyone has similar incidents IN OR NEAR Colorado, I will be glad to "deal" with it for you.

Thanks,
Steve
smc252 on AIM
 

Mafix

New member
ya know after reading all this i'm actually kinda glad i dealt with toysport for mine. they still suck but at least i got my parts in good time and without a lot of BS. sorry to hear all this guys. really sucks.
 

InitialD93

New member
if you need just a long block... contact Orient Engine (in business for 25 years)... they are an import engine remanufacturer out of Kentucky... every engine is stripped and rebuilt to factory specs w/ all new parts w/ compression test, and partially broken in on an engine dyno before they are shipped out... comes with a 3 year unlimited mile warrenty (witch i have used... covered about $1000 worth of work, labor, parts at no cost to me)

and the cost for all of this... $1800

www.orientengine.com

i have no complaints with this company what so ever... they had 2 3SGTE engines in stock upon my contacting them... my claim number was 435 i think... so in 25 years of building engines... they have only had 435 claims made on their 3 year unlimited mile warrenty (thats for any kind of import engine at all) i dont think even a dealership has ever gotten by with those kinds of numbers
 

BraveUlysses

New member
XoDuzZ":3dkjnsfk said:
ryan and i just baught clips from this company.



oh shit.

I fuckin' told you to rebuild it!




To the OP: I live 20 minutes away from Burlington. They have a Krispy Kreme. I have two reasons to visit Bunglington.

However, I mapquested the address you posted. The street doesn't exist. However I did a whois.com lookup of the website and this is what came up:

http://www.whois.com/nonssl/WhoisLookup ... motors.com

Domain Name.......... japandirectmotors.com
Creation Date........ 2004-02-22
Registration Date.... 2004-02-22
Expiry Date.......... 2006-02-22
Organisation Name.... Brandie Lourenco
Organisation Address. 2419 Jillian Ct
Organisation Address.
Organisation Address. Mount Vernon
Organisation Address. 98274
Organisation Address. WA
Organisation Address. UNITED STATES

Admin Name........... Brandie Lourenco
Admin Address........ 2419 Jillian Ct
Admin Address........
Admin Address........ Mount Vernon
Admin Address........ 98274
Admin Address........ WA
Admin Address........ UNITED STATES
Admin Email.......... japandirectmotors@earthlink.ne
Admin Phone.......... +1.3608405973
Admin Fax............

Tech Name............ Earthlink Hostmaster
Tech Address......... 1375 Peachtree St Level A
Tech Address.........
Tech Address......... Atlanta
Tech Address......... 30309
Tech Address......... GA
Tech Address......... UNITED STATES
Tech Email........... hostmaster@earthlink.net
Tech Phone........... +1.8889321997
Tech Fax............. +1.4042871057
Name Server.......... dns2.earthlink.net
Name Server.......... dns3.earthlink.net

The address posted in the whois gives this:

http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?co ... chtab=home

Mt Vernon is a sister city to Burlington (opposite sides of a river).
 

AWDios

New member
James yours and Ryan's situation may not be as bad, because I'm assuming you actually saw the clips correct? If so you should be ok, cause you know they're there. I'd just go get them ASAP and be done with it.
 

88 GT-FOUR

New member
Damn. That's the guy I got my ST165 clip from. He had it stored in Tacoma. There was quite a bit of clusterf*ckage going on when I tried to get the clip from him. I got lucky because I didn't wait for this jackass to ship the gear to me.

However, the clip was ALREADY parted out from when it was originally on Ebay. Guy is definately a scheister. I am glad I got away with the clip as I did. I bet Rob would have cleaned out all the mods if he knew about 'em. :)

BTW, for those in the PacNW... looks like his Tacoma base of operations is finally sick of this bullsh*t and is pulling the plug on any graces they offered him.

I hope you get this matter resolved.
 

Snyder

New member
Sorry about the shit business. These days its hard to find decent people. I have been dealing with Soshin Trade for 4 years. I have nothing to says but excellent things about them. There engines come with whatever you want and they arrive at your door step in about a week. They come on a scid and shrink wrapped.

Soshinusa.com

At for Efrain Ramos

Tell him Chris from New Jersey sent you.

He can get almost any engine, trans, or clips you want.

Thanks
 

layzienoy

New member
daym that sucks, if iit had happened to me, me and my people would pay him a visit..

anyways, i had a good experience with venus-auto, i got an exeptional deal on my sr20det, well i guess that the guy[i spoke with the owner] liked me some because i spoke to him in japanese lol

if you want information on engine importers, i would send you to automotiveforums.com the 240sx nissan section those guys know the good companies as soo many people are looking for sr20det nowadays

also, Freedom of Information Act[i believe], look it up, basically for 20 to 30 bucks, you can find out daym near anything about a person, at like a hall of records or someplace, i remember someone was harassing me online a little ways back, for an all impressive 65dollars, i was able to find where he lived/worked/his background and where his daughter went to college/drom room#/and major
 
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