feel bad for my bro

whats up guys. my little brother recently had bc coilovers installed on his 2012 si. one of his friends friends, who is a certified mechanic at midas, did the installation for 100 bucks which is very cheap (that's the reason he went to this guy in the 1st place) now, here we are a month later and my brother says that the other night when he was about to pull out of a parking space his car literally grinded to a hault and would not move. he said it sounded like something metal was stuck in his front right wheel well.he got out checked it and nothing was there but he noticed a black powder like substance on his inner rim. he got back in his car and tried to move again and it moved with no grindage. then 2 days ago it happened again! he called the guy who installed and he said it was probably a sway bar that's loose so today he is going to "fix" the problem. i feel so bad for my bro. he loves his car and is rightly pissed off about it. i told him he should get some of his money back if not all of it if it's more than a sway bar being loose. what do you guys think could be wrong? and what would you do in this situation??

Ouch that sounds like a whole lot of pain in the ass not that informed about mechanical stuff so im afraid i can give nothing but compassion.

I love my car so much myself and its like it physically hurts me when something is wrong with it

yup i couldnt imagine going through that with my car. im getting coils in feb for my gen coupe and was going to have the same guy install them but fuck that now lol ill spend the extra penny and go to a garage

If it were me I would jack my car up in the garage and take a look underneath for myself. Does your brother now enough about working on cars to install those coilovers by himself? Regardless, I would get my $100 back it's obvious that dude didn't have the "Midas touch"

no unfortunately we both don't posses the know how but im going to press getting his money back. lol he definatel didn't have the midas touch

Yeah I'd take hell to earth for that guy to give me my money back. Guess I was doing good so far always taking my car to a garage even though it was shit expensive there.

yes you did unless you really know and trust the person you got working on your car. i havent started any major projects on my car yet but needless to say ill be going to a reputable garage when the time comes.i just dont want to have to crack skulls for my bro (as i often do) to get his money back

I have BC BR coilovers on my levin, those are pretty good, even for track use. One of the best mid prized coilovers at the market, beats D2´s for good. Though i installed them myself. Many garage shops doesnt give a crap about customers car, its sad really.

I had coilovers put on my Civic and the shop forgot to tighten the top bolts so it kept knocking but I thought it was just the tire hitting the fender. I went to go check them and the bolts weren't even hand tight they were just barely on the thread.

I only go to shops for brakes and rusted bolts, other than that I never trust someone else with my car.

How low is the car?
Does he have aftermarket wheels with a high offset

Grinding to a hault means the axles must be touching the subframe or the sways.
The grinding could also be backspacing issues with wider high offset wheels when going from oem struts to coils.

If i were you id go lift up the car, check every bolt with a torque wrench.

I do everything myself, I have also seen a lot of people's cars damaged by careless workshops. Most of the time they will push to get as much work out in a day rather than taking the extra 5 - 10 minutes to double check everything.

I know what you mean. I had to sue twice because of that. Oh well I won so I don't really care. Hope doing everything twice for free because they had to pay my money back, a few grand if I remember it right, taught them to do it right instantly from then on. Now found a very good one though they do exquisit work and double check everything before the tires touch a public road again.

Yeah i have my connects for what i need.
My pops had a wonderful time with Firestone on multiple occasions as they stripped 4 different lugs and wheel bolts because theyre too lazy to hand tighten before hitting them with the gun.

my brother told me he went back to the guy and it ended being the sway bar being loose or something. supposedly the problem is fixed so we'll see. i dont care i'm still not taking my car to this guy when i need work

Sway bar eh? If it happens again you should know what to do

it could be any number of things, sounds like a sloppy install...

but hell it could be one little thing that got missed, i cant say i never fucked any customers cars lolol.

you should really at least pull the wheels off and see what you see.
it could be something like a missing caliper bolt even, ive seen a one bolt break caliper pivot and blow a hole in a rim (lol and a second brand new wheel i put on because some guy forgot one bolt)

well its been 4 days since the "fix" and his tire hasnt fallen off so i guess all is good for now. thanks for all the input. i told my bro i made this thread in this forum instead of my car IRL's forum because you guys are super helpful and he was like "you did that? for me?" lol so yea thanx alot ppls