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February 2024 by Marc Englert
Great people taking Vanagons to a whole new level!
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January 2024 by Broke Bucket Compound
Passionate and friendly shop. They are pushing the boundaries of VW Vanagon swaps, and an ever growing aftermarket niche for your adventures.Highly recommend checking them out.
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January 2024 by John Gribben
This is the go-to for Vanagon, and VW van/bus work. The staff is knowledgeable and passionate about what they do, and they do it well. Setting trends and creating new and exciting ways to make you fall in love with your old van is just part of the magic happening here. Want to swap in a Subaru motor? Go here. Want to have a 500hp electric van? Go here. Want to get your old pig running right again? You know……
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December 2023 by Don R.
I bought a small car kit several years ago to install a '04 forester xt 2.5 turbo in a 1985 vw vanagon westfalia. I sourced the motor prior to purchasing the kit. Good decision, because engine is specific to kits. The engine came out of a running car i seen run in a video prior to part out. I put the engine and kit in container because life got busy, I moved shops etc and it went to the back burner. Last year i got the motor out of container and pulled motor out of vanagon. I did not rebuild motor but cleaned it up, also installed new water pump and timing belt kit, new intake tube to turbo that runs under intake, intake manifold gaskets and new plastic timing belt covers. I did put a new power steering pump, turbo, and alternator on it as well. I was missing some stuff from the donor engine that I had to source to get it to work, like a non turbo fly wheel, I was not aware of this but small car answered the phone and put me in the right direction when I needed them to. Fast forward to this year. Last week I got a lot of the swap done and was able to start engine. Building wiring harness was no joke. At this time small car was also able to assist me with some info I wasn't clear on, wasn't much because I been a mechanic my whole life. They sent me Subaru prints with the swap kit with decent instructions and an interface to keep check engine light off, for things not used like fuel temp senders etc. I picked a turbo swap and when I did they informed me it was more advanced then the other swaps because I couldn't buy a harness and I had to make some of my own exhaust and wing a few things. I don't get the bad reviews I see about them. Doing a motor swap like this is not like changing brakes or swapping parts. Building a custom harness took me about 24-32 hours and I still gotta button it up. I am thankful that there are places making swap parts like this and there are shops passionate about Vanagons.
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December 2023 by Tim J.
Thrilled with the communication and quality of work in a timely manner at Small Car. Recently had dash work, brakes, and a dozen tiny things handled and love my Van now!!!
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November 2023 by Dv C.
This used to be a quality shop when Brian owned it. Now it takes forever to get an appointment and my car comes back with more problems than it went in with. Headlights that are disconnected, used parts substituted for new, tools left in the car, incorrect diagnosis, the list goes on and on. They just don't do quality work.
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November 2023 by Kevin H.
To follow up on my experience with Small Car Performance, the experience only got worse. The engine swap was good (so far, after 100 miles). However, in the mating of the engine to the transmission, they misaligned the gear shift linkage and the van was very dangerous to drive. The van should not have been allowed to leave the shop in that condition. Small Car insisted that it was the transmission and they could repair it for an outrageous price! I had the car towed to Peace Vans and they adjusted the linkage, charging two hours labor with no parts. On the drive home I noticed that the rear brakes, which Small Car installed, weren't adjusted correctly. The bottom line; the newly installed disks were gouged to a point that the rotors needed machining. This is after only 100 miles! I called Small Car to make an appointment to fix a plethora of problems that I discovered. Problems included water leaks, the shifter and brakes; the clock only runs when the ignition is on, the kit air conditioning vents block the original vents, and the glove box is misaligned. They never returned my phone calls. or answer emails. My experience with Small Car is that their priority is to sell you as many parts as possible (which are 30-50% overpriced) and services, even if you don't need them. Their quality control during my engine swap was non-existent. Small Call Performance practices unethical businesses behavior. (Removing new parts and replacing them with their overpriced parts, while keeping your removed parts. Recommending services that are not needed or wanted.) I can't and will not recommend this shop to anyone wishing to perform an engine conversion. They are overpriced with little or no quality oversight. Good luck in trying to utilize any so called 'warranty'. I couldn't get them to return a phone call.
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October 2023 by Jen Svrcek
Smallcar tried to charge us $10,000 for a repair that wound up costing us $169 to fix. When we didn’t want to pay the $10K for the repair, they insisted we sell them our van. When we didn’t want to sell them our van, they charged us $1200 to clean our van, a cleaning we didn't ask for. When we paid the $1200, they immediately pushed our van into the street so it would get impounded by their friends who own the tow yard in their parking lot so they could buy it from them (the girl at the front desk said the owners were friendly with each other) because they knew we were in Berlin when this was all happening and they thought we couldn’t get it out of impound in time. Austin, the owner of smallcar, is a psychopath.
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September 2023 by Mark Barlow
Solid mechanics who know vw vans!!Highly recommend if your in the market for an upgrade to your beloved vanagon!!
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September 2023 by William Church
I called twice,emailed pics as requested.I was told they'll get back to me. Never got a call back.Called again.Nothing.Decided to go with a different company .
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June 2023 by Justin Hutchings
Very friendly and professional, helped me through the process of getting my 68 VW Beetle back on the road. Prices are fair and they outlined everything very clearly before you approve any work. Brought my car in because it lost the rear driver hub while driving they replaced rear drive shafts along with hubs and brakes. Also had them tune my carbs and the beetle has never ran better, very impressed. I plan to return if I need any future maintenance I'm not capable of doing myself.
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May 2023 by deanomavro
Very happy with purchased product. Shortened oil sump pan for VW Subaru converted bay. I’ve been riding round with a home made shortened pan for a few years all the while really wanting one of these from small car performance. If anything they are over engineered, very robust and well made, really cool finish to the conversion too. At a cost of £700 shipped to the UK they are not cheap but I have to say the actual $500 price tag for the part is worth it purely for the engineering that has gone into it.The only negative I have found is lack of basic info Included with the part. Simple clarification information regarding capacity and simple mods that may be required. Just a few words on a piece of A4 would’ve been ace.Overall very happy with the product. Would definitely recommend.
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April 2023 by Gary Harris
For all of you VW T3 affecionados out there, I'd like to give a serious review of appreciation to Austin and his team of experts at Small Car Performance. Austin and team at SCP continue to provide well engineered and thought out solutions for the T3 + community. Many seemingly impossible obstacles have been thoroughly fleshed out for us that are performing upgrades to our T3's. SCP is approachable, available, and incredibly knowledgeable on any problem I've had thus far. They're fantastic! Keep up the magic SCP!
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April 2023 by Andrew T.
New owners have completely turned this shop around. They are well deserving of a perfect rating. Austin and his team are exceptional. It's one thing to be comprehensively knowledgeable about all things VW it's an entire other endeavor to smash great customer service and efficient timeframe. I've now dealt with small car performance on two separate occasions over the past year and couldn't be more pleased if someone left me a bathtub full of puppies.
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March 2023 by Bert Baker
Small Car Performance performed a Subaru swap into my father's 86 Westfaila Syncro. They did a phenomenal job. Their staff are very friendly and knowledgeable.They performed some diagnostics and recommendations that we were hoping to receive. Their expertise shows in their high quality of work.
