About a month ago I decided to get 4:10 gears installed in my 99 Cobra. I went on this website and others to ask what would be a good dependable place to get them installed in the bay area. I was told APEX motor sports in Santa Clara were reasonably priced and they do good work. So I took it to them and the nightmare began. I got Ford Racing gears put in, along with new bearings and hawk brake pads. After about a week, I noticed that my rear rotors were still rusted, as if the brake pads were not contacting the rotors. So I took it apart and I noticed that the pads were glazed over, indicating they didn’t scuff up the rotors or pads. They said they machined the rotors, which I don’t believe they did. I was pretty mad about the brakes, because I had bought pads before I took it there but they gave me a deal on better pads and it was one less thing I would have to do. But more was yet to come. About a week later I am driving around and I hear some serous grinding noises coming from the rear. I take off the wheel and I notice that the entire back wheel is moving around. The half shaft bolt was loose, and was obviously not tightened to spec. So basically I have been driving around with my half shaft bolt loose for a couple of weeks. I call them up and they offer to “make it right,” but I have to tow it there, which is about 50 miles from my house. So I do, and what do they do to fix it, they simply put some lock tight on the bolt. I had already tried tightening the bolt, but the wheel still was wobbling. I figure they would at least replace the wheel bearings, since they had to be fried by this point. But I guess $16.00 was too much. Well I figure the problem is fixed, and I drive the car to work as usual. When I wash the car the next week I notice grease in the inside of the wheel. They tore the CV joint boot. I call up and they offer to make it right again, but I want it inspected by a third party, I don’t trust them. He is willing to replace the boot, but nothing else. I don’t know about you but when the boot is torn, I replace the half shaft. His plan was to use one of the temporary side mounted boots. That’s not how I gave them the car originally; I had perfectly fine half shafts and bearings, and I would not need to replace them for at least another 50,000 miles, my car only had 40,000 miles on it! I said screw it, I will pay for a new half shaft and bearings so I would not have to go back again. By this time a 1,000 dollar gear install had turned into an additional $600( Towing, half shaft, and third party inspection). But it gets better, I have wait an additional 3 weeks to get the parts installed because it has to be ordered from Detroit, and they ordered the wrong part at first. On top of this I had to call them every day to see what was going on because they ever returned my calls, and it took three days before they even ordered the part due to them stringing me along. Basically the moral of the story is DO NOT TAKE YOUR CAR TO APEX. They do shady work, and they will screw you any way they can. The sad thing is, I could have done the work but I it would probably take me a week or so to do it because I work all the time. But I need the car to get to work so I figured I would just pay for someone to do it quickly and professionally. My car ended up sitting for about a month due to all the problems.
