Smoky Hill Restoration Pro Touring Nightmare

[Stevcom]

I have been restoring a 69 Chevelle SS for almost two years with Smoky Hill Restoration in Granbury, Texas. Finally, with the help of my attorney we got the car out of Smoky Hill Restoration last month, December 07, and moved to a new shop to complete the car. Smoky Hill Restoration in Granbury, Texas would not return all of my original parts needed to complete the car so I am now being forced to find and buy many of the original parts that Smoky Hill Restoration refused to return to me. Very expensive and hard if not almost impossible to find NOS parts for this car as so many have been restored.

Smoky Hill Restoration made unreasonable demands for advance payements throughout the time my car was there and when I would give them advances they would never meet any time schedule for work on my car that they agreed too. And, when questioned they would get mad and would not take my calls. They wanted me to order all of my parts which was fine however most of the time the parts were not what we needed or would not fit what they were trying to build. On one occassion they encouraged me to send the crate 502 I purchased out to have balanced and printed for 1400.00. When the engine was ready to be picked up by them the bill was 4400.00. They told me they were surprised as well. No accountability at all.

I have found another shop in the Metroplex (Fort Worth) who is doing a great job finishing the car for me. I checked them out much better than I did Smoky Hill and have seen several of their "finished" cars. We are now in a battle to get all of my original parts back from Smoky Hill as they refused to give me all of my original exterior trim and interior parts. We have even had to file a law suit against them. Unfortunately, to keep the progress going on the car I am going to have to start buying a lot of NOS parts next week that my new builder has located so we will be relagated to other means of reimbursement from Smoky Hill.

Smoky Hill Restoration in Granbury, Texas did not seem to have any desire to ever finish my car. I cannot speak for other customers they have but in almost two years of going there I never witnessed a complete restoration leave their shop. In fact, some of their restorations have been there over three years. They never gave me a completion date for anything that they kept and every time we got something completed it was after I had raised a lot of stink. I think a lot of people who have cars there just "give up" and hope the phone doesn't ring with Smoky Hill on the other end asking or demanding more money for something but never delivering on a promise or committment.

I think that Smoky Hill Restoration sold a lot of my parts from my original car to raise money and then tried to hoodwink me into buying a lot of new aftermarket parts to replace what they sold. I say this because for several months before we got the car out of the shop I would ask about these parts and whether or not they needed to be sent out to be refinished etc. and I always got the answer that they were going through everything and would never let me look through them myself. Then, when we were able to get my car and all the new parts I had purchased guess what. No original parts.

Smoky Hill Restoration and the people who own it, Bill and Wanda Hart, are about the most dishonest people I have ever met and I have met a lot of people. I have been in business for myself for over 30 years and built several companies from scratch. This beats anything I have ever seen. My goal is to try and prevent some other person from finding themselves in the same place I was. People work hard for their money and do not deserve to be treated this way.

Thanks for reading and responding.

Steve Haines
Granbury, Texas
817-776-4320
254-631-7730