Great Lakes American Diesel review: poor workmanship / failure to honor 5 year warranty

My name is Brandon Heath Caldwel and this is my testimony...
I know Rick at Great Lakes diesel in Buffalo New York from eBay ads I had a motor that blew so I was on eBay looking for rebuild kits and I come across Rick's motors on eBay so I gave him a email saying hey this is Brandon how you doing I have a 3406E model cat that I would like to rebuild. well he pleaded with me oh no you don't want to rebuild that thing that's a bad year all this time I'm thinking in my head well the motor has 800, 000 miles on it so It can't be too bad but when you look at ricks motors you think OK this guy really knows what he's talking about so he pleaded with me to buy a C15 from him he says it's from 2008 that it only has 400, 000 miles on it and that he would sell it to me for $10, 000 so I fly up there with a cashiers check I meet Rick and Tina they take me out to dinner they put me up at a hotel the next day Rick is supposed to spend the day with me explaining how his Motors are built and what I'm buying well he pond me off on one of his employees which the guy turned out to be a cool guy but so Rick shows me the motor that I'm buying and I give him the cashiers check we sign paperwork I have a one-year warranty on that motor and within three or five years he will buy the motor back for 5000 and put it towards one of his built motors so I'm thinking OK that's a good deal well it takes me three months to get the motor and it's took me another three months just to get parts out of this guy Rick at Great Lakes diesel so one day I call Rick asking for parts where is my parts this whole time I have not been working to support my family he says oh they're right here Tina‘s going to get them sent out blah blah blah blah but hey I need you to do me something I have this customer of mine he drove the truck 800 miles and blew the motor up can you go down to Kenworth of Tampa and take a look at it for me take some pictures talk to the mechanics and see what you can figure out well at this time me and Rick and Tina are good so I'm like OK sure sure Rick so I drive down there I come to Trippy's Peterbilt I believe it was yellow I talk to the mechanics we pop the hood they showed me the timing cover where the bolt came out we discuss what happened and the mechanic simply said hey it is the person Who built the motor's fault they didn't fully torqued down the bolts or they didn't even tighten the bolts bolts that came out and flew through the timing cover so I asked him are you sure this is what happend.we are dead sure I said well Rick built a lot of motors.and at this time I had no idea what people were saying on the Internet about Rick and his business and that he had been screwing people over for the past 30 years I had no idea so I take pictures I talk to the mechanics I send the stuff to Rick the pictures and I even tell him hey even know the truck got ran out of oil It's not the drivers fault of what happened that somehow you had missed a bolt didn't tighten it up didn't torque it down what have you it came down hit something spinning and shot out the timing cover.you can even see in the pictures that the break comes from the inside out this whole time he's telling me no it's not my fault blah blah blah it's the drivers fault he's the one that ran it out of oil he tells me the driver's responsibility is to keep water in the radiator and oil in the pan I said Rick I understand that but when it's late at night and you're driving you're tired you might not know that there's a big hole somewhere where oil is just gushing out.well it's not my fault blah blah that's what he tells me so he says hey do you know anywhere where I can get a Bmodel to replace this guys motor I said yeah I have a friend of mine down the road who owns a junkyard scrapyard whatever they take motors transmissions rear ends tires what have you and sells parts so I go over there I find approximately 13 different Bmodel cats for Rick I call him back up I send them pictures of the motors and at this time he's telling me I need to buy this guy a motor just to shut him up and his fat [censored]ing wife and he tells me that they will not leave me alone.he was just being really really cruel and I was just thinking like wow these people just spent well over $25, 000 with you they make it 800 miles and their motor blows up and I start to think in my head well maybe he's not such a good person so I let them know about the b model motors that my friend has and that's the last I hear of it from him about Trippi‘s truck. I have my own problems with him I have a motor that like I said previously it took me three months to get it and I've been waiting on parts for another three months now might I add this motor only has a one year warranty with Rick and Rick signed it I have the paperwork so it comes down to finally I'm missing two pieces of the puzzle a water pump and the motor had a bad injector from the outside motor looks fine other than I had to buy sensors stuff like that that should've come with the motor and Rick won't send me my package he tells me oh I'm no longer making money off to you I broke even on that motor if you want that stuff you're going to send me 200 more dollars for shipping now previously when I first met him in Buffalo when I flew up there he told me anything absolutely anything you need for this motor I got it for you I will get it shipped right out to you and if that motor fails I have a truck in the back that I will give you now he's talking about his Peterbilt with the big V12 cat in it and now fast forward six months now he's not wanting to honor his agreement to warrantee the stuff that's not there on the motor or that is bad on my motor so then I just gave in I send him 200 and something dollars through PayPal just so I can get my stuff to finish my motor so I can start working again. so he finally send me a injector it's an old injector he sends me a Old water pump well come to find out the water pump that you sent me is like the one he sent me before it's old it leaks so at this time my mechanic George has done tookin the top half of the motor apart and he tells me Brandon all these bolts up here are loose they've all vibrated and messed the threads up we have to buy new ones now at this time I'm really pissed because the bolts aren't cheap the water pump isn't cheap the labor isn't cheap so I tell George get into the motor double check everything go over every bolt make sure it's all torque to spec now this is something that Rick was supposed to do he had told me when I was up there That he will go through this motor 100% make sure it's 100% ready for me so that way i can just drop it in and get back to work so at this time I'm mad smokes coming out of my ears now at this time I've done read every comment on the Internet about Rick and Tina and their business and what they have been doing to people for the past 30 years so July 28 2019 I contact or try to they don't answer of course they never answer I leave them a message stating that the motor I paid $10, 000 for from Rick has to have at least another five to $8000 put into it just to make it operational and that if they do not get back with me by the 29th or 30 of July that I will be getting in contact with my attorney and I will be suing Tina Rick and their company and I explain to them that I was jumping on board with trippy and his wife to join in on the class action lawsuit that is being filed against Great Lakes diesel well unfortunately I missed either Tina or Rick's call at 11 o'clock on 29 July so around 2:30 I give them a call back Tina answers the phone she already knows it's me she has Caller ID but she answers the phone this is Great Lakes Diesel so how can I help you I said yeah Tina this is Brandon that motor I bought from Rick has a bunch of stuff loose in it I have to buy new parts for it it's going to cost $5000 to 8000 dollars sI have a one-year warranty with you guys Rick signed it I need to talk or Rick oh let me see if he can come to the phone so I stay on hold for a few minutes she comes back to the phone Well ricks busy right now he said he'll call you back later I said so he's gonna call me back today now this being the 29 July so even though I knew he wasn't going to call me back today I just had to ask so as of right now this is where I stand with my situation a few weeks back when they pulled this oh you have to send me $200 before I can send send you your stuff because I'm no longer making money off of you.that's what Rick told me he actually yelled at me that day said I'm not Effen arguing with you you can effen sit there and think about it click hung up the phone on me.now at one time Rick would call me his adopted stepson said he would do anything for me if I had any problems if I couldn't get it figured out he would fly down and help me it's all a front it's all an act with these two people they've been ripping people off for 30 years now coming back to a few weeks ago I remember in my center consul of my truck I have paperwork on Trippy's truck because I went there to look at it and they gave me paperwork on what was wrong with it or what they had determined so I say hey I'm going to call these guys up get their side of the story explain my situation and tell them that at one time Rick and Tina had me go down there and talk to them and look at the truck and look at the motor and take pictures to try and pin it on trippy so rick did not have to cover the motor so I call trippy I talk to him for about 30 minutes or so explain to him what my role in all this was and that now I was on the receiving end of their [censored] and he said hey my wife would love to talk to you would you talk to her I said yes absolutely to get more of the story I would love to talk to your wife.so later that day she calls me and we talked for 3045 minutes and come to find out they're going through a similar problem as me except Way worse I mean way way way worse because they had transferred Rick well over $25, 000 then they had to go pick the motor up from Rick because he was [censored]ting them around and they had to take it to Peterbilt to have it finished.and installed in their truck and at this point I just felt so bad for trippy and his wife because at this point in their life not only did they send Rick well over $25, 000 they had to spend a month or two in a hotel then after finally getting the motor going they only made it 800 miles down the road before the motor locked up due to lack of lubrication which in return was the manufacturer of the motors fault not cat but the guy who built it and the guy who built it his name is Rick at Great Lakes diesel now this came straight out of five or six of the mechanics mouths at Kenworth in Tampa they tell me there's no way this could've happened if those bolts would've been torqued down to spec So that's my role in all this I'm just one of the many people that they have screwed over now I did pay 10, 000 for my motor I did get my motor but my motor was far from drop in operational as he claimed and as he told me and when you're looking at it in the crate it's a complete motor so you don't know what the internals are you're just relying on someone that has spent the past 40 years building motors I took his word for it they're good at what they do and when I say that I mean not building motors because a lot of their motors fail most of them fail and the owners are out tremendous amounts of money but they're good at scamming people like onto eBay for instance if you looked up one of his motors it would say hey here's a motor here's the price send me the money and I will ship it out to you but they never have any motors to ship he has to build them but that isn't in the ad so all these people are sending him money for what they think is a motor that's already ready to be shipped out come to find out there are people who are still waiting for motors it's been over two years a few years back Rick screwed someone out of like $29, 000 that guy came to his shop and beat him with a pipe now I have gotten in with trippy and his wife so I can join in on this class action lawsuit because like I mentioned earlier I gave him 10, 000 for a operational motor three months later he sends me a motor it is nowhere near operational I still need parts and six months into it I'm still trying to get this motor to work now I could've went and bought everything and the motor would already be running that's fine but that's not what Rick told me Rick told me the motor was fine ready to go and if you needed anything I would send it to you and here's a one year warranty he signed it I signed it so I have joined forces with trippy and his wife this is my statement on what I seen with their truck and what I'm dealing with personally with Rick and Tina just in the past six months with me not being able to drive my truck they have cost me well over 80, 000 Justin downtime and now I'm having to spend another five to $8000 just to have my mechanic take the motor apart tighten everything down to spec like Rick was supposed to do and put it all back together with good parts so like me trippy and his wife and really countless other people we have all had to sacrifice just to get our lives back on track because what Rick and Tina do to people Justice needs to be served and in my opinion he needs to go to prison he has committed countless acts of fraud whether it be failure to uphold warrantees or just taking people's money and they are both guilty of this Rick and Tina and never sending them a motor and when [censored] really hits the fan for them they just file bankruptcy and start a new LLC this is why Trippys wife my mother and me we are dedicated to bringing these lowlifes down they've already cost us everything for us there's really nothing else to loose I have lost countless jobs over this and like I previously stated when I added up what I would've made driving the past six months that I've been screwed over by them trying to get my motor going it's around $80, 000 add the $10, 000 that I paid for the motor add another $5000-$8000 for parts and labor that is costing me to get the motor operational do the math so I apologize for such a long statement and testimony but this is truly the only way I can describe what trippy trippy's wife and I have gone through... so this is the end of my statement it is July 29, 2019 and my name is Brandon Heath Caldwell