NJS

Has anyone used these before? If so are they anygood?

Thanks

I've not used them myself but i have a service sticker under my bonnet from them and i remember someone commenting about the quality of their work.

I bought my Alfa 166 back in 2007 it had a comprehensive service history file covering all of its 60,000 miles, right down to receipts for bulbs etc. The car had been serviced at NJS a couple of months prior to me buying the car. They had done a load of work (over £1000) including the cars first cam belt change, brakes and a heater fan.

Their website price list for a belt change included a water pump and that was the price shown on my receipt. I called them to confirm the car had been there for all the work listed on the receipt prior to buying the car. They confirmed it had.

Six months ago my water pump failed, several thousand miles before the next cam belt was due. Oh well I thought, thing s like that happen. When my car was finished the mechanic wanted a word away from the office.

He suggested that the water pump was original and had never been changed. He also told me that the belt had been done using tipex and that the cam timing was not correct, he couldn't fit the cam clamps suggesting that the belt had been replaced without taking off all the inlet system and cam covers The reason he wanted a word is because he thought I might have done the job the cheeck!

Now I have no idea what the previous owner had paid for, or requested but I did have receipts for work, work that I now suspect was hot carried out as it should have been

Given Bob's excellent summary above i'd be taking mine to someone else, who will at least do what they say they will do and charge accordingly

The silly thing is, and alot of people on here wont like me saying this, but I've heard some similar reports about a Fiat friendly place in Birmingham.

Don't know what to think anymore.

Is there any mechanic out there that we can trust these days.

They all make mistakes, but this is a clear case of lying and charging for work that patently wasn't performed. On its own thats bad enough, but put the engine at risk without the owner having any clue about it. Could have turned out very costly or even the end of the car!!

As I said above "I've heard similar in Birmingham"

YOu could ask to see the old parts, but mark them before hand.
Could be a bit hard with a waterpump thou.

A FIAT friendly place, or a FIAT Coupe friendly place?

As for the mechanic question. Yes there is. My local mechanic is 100% straight (Andrew at Hilton Motors, Bitterne, So'ton). He doesn't like Coupes but has worked on mine. We've used him on a variety of cars for years without any issues. We trust him totally.

"Heard" or know? Very different things

I have posted of one potential concern regarding the business in question. I am sure that they also do good work and will have plenty of satisfied customers to vouch for that. If they didn't then they would not still be in business.

There could be any number of reasons giving rise to the issue I highlighted. It could have been something so simple as a disgruntled or disshonest employee ripping off his boss, the company and the customers. Are they still there? Did the boss ever know? Who knows?

I wouldn't suggest you avoid the place, I would just advise that, as with anywhere, you go in with your eyes wide open. Trust is generally something that you build up with someone over time. Starting out you need to always make sure that the person doing the work for you understands fully your expectations before they begin.

And be careful of recomendations. I have been here for a good few years and learnt that one persons fantastic is all too quickly the next persons dissapointed....

Quite right. I for one "know" it to be true.

So do i

And so do I

Seemed alright for me as well, I was just looking for someone a bit nearer and to keep the misses away from that bloody Bullring!!!

Just go to Joe's (countrycruising), not that far from alcester really, and everyone seems to be happy with his service..... Apart fro
Ross....

Nick

Agreeded!

Friendly, polite, and makes a nice cuppa!
Also seems to do more work then you pay for...
Some call him strange for this weird work ethic

The only mechanic i trust is......me!
But that's only because im a tight git.

I've used NJS in the past before finding Joe (fcss). They looked after my old Alfa then set up my Coupe when I 1st got it on the road.

Due to their knowledge of both Fiat and Lancia they were the more than happy setting my car up where others were a bit reluctant to go near it. Neil definitely knows his stuff, it's a shame you've had a bad experience Bob.

OP, like any specialist I'd go and see them, have a chat and see what you think.

I havn't had a bad experience, just seeing if there is anyone nearer to me.

Every one is different but i think a good service is hard to find and from alot of experience in cars I am willing to travel for good work man ship and a honest garage. It's all ways nice to hear what garages are like from some else and from the people on the forum.

Am lucky as my garage is only just down the road in leicestershire ( jbt at midland car services) which I've been going to him for some years.
Just done my 500bhp coupe in three weeks for spa lol. Love it!!!!

And there's barbzs (torqueitailia) who is a legend with the coupes but he's down London area. My engine is a barbzs which is mind blowing thank you dude. Alot of people are running barbzs engines.

Hope all the post from everyone help.
Good luck Shaun.

Thanks everyone.

Just don't want to take the misses to the Bull Ring, it would cost me more than the car!!!

For all people reading this thread it would appear we are being accused of charging for parts we have not fitted this is completely untrue! Before I go on too much ask your self why would we.
Bob says he bought the car in 2007 and says the water pump failed in early 2012 a gap of 5 years also he doesn’t state how long before the purchase of the car the belt kit was replaced? How did the mechanic decide it had never been changed? By looking at it? Did he carbon date it?
Maybe he was just telling you this so you only used him in the future lets face it, it wouldn’t be the first time a garage slagged of another garage to get more customers work,
Well we know if it had been replaced it would be at least 5 years old so how could he tell? also worth noting on the Alfa twin spark engine we don’t include the water pump in the price for a belt kit replacement we inspect the pump and advise the customer if we think it will be ok until the next belt change which by the way is every 36mths or 36000 miles whichever comes first
another thing worth noting is bob doesn’t actually know the history of this car prior to his purchase of the car, since we replaced the belt kit how do we know that somebody else hasn’t been carrying out work on this car for instance someone might have replaced the head gasket and not had the tools to time the engine properly hence the use of tip ex maybe?
It maybe worth asking the mechanic how the hell we would have changed the inlet variator on the camshaft if we didn’t use the cam lock tools it would be impossible!
I can assure everyone we have all the special tools to carry out any repairs and servicing on any fiat or Alfa Romeo and I am more than happy for any customer to watch us use them on there engine we are also more than happy to return all used parts to the customer for inspection.
I believe forums to be great for owners and we receive a huge amount of recommendations from forums as I believe we have a excellent reputation at NJS we are a small company and we pride ourselves on doing an excellent job using all the correct procedures and quality parts,
I am not only the owner but im also the head technician which is why I am the only person on this planet to know for sure that these allegations are completely untrue.
It’s a real shame that this thread has probably done a huge amount of damage to a very honest and good company that really does love working on these cars NJS is a company that has won awards for race car preparation the technicians at NJS have prepared cars to the highest standard for the past 19 years
This thread was brought to my attention by a concerned customer who has used us with his coupe since he first bought the car in 1998 and we still look after it for him
When I first read this thread I was extremely upset as I know the things being written to be completely untrue it’s a shame that before posts like these are made that proof is not provided it appears these days you can destroy someone’s business in a couple of minutes armed with a keyboard and a bunch of incorrect information,
As I don’t know the exact details of the car in question I cant say if the pump was replaced or not all I can say is we have never charged for a part that hasn’t been fitted and we always use the special tools for fitting belts the only bottle of tip-ex resides in the offices for use in there and that’s a fact!!!