Complaint Review: Great Lakes American Diesel

We wired Rick Plauman 32.932.00 up front to a build a engine for us on Feb 21,2019. He stated he could have this done in 10 days, as time was of the essence for our truck to not be down for to long of time , he was well aware that our truck needed to be back out on the road by April 1, 2019.

He agreed to complete the engine and have it shipped out by the 3rd week of March. After numerous phone calls, texts and emails, we become suspicious that something was not right when we began getting one excuse after another as to why it was not completed. We had previously looked at reviews on ebay and felt confident when we wired the money that it was safe to do.

But further research when not getting our engine as promised 99 percent of the reviews were the same story over and over.  Rick has been doing this to people for over two decades, it was simple just google the business and it all comes up. At the end of March we informed Rick that we were coming up to get our engine, he requested another week , which we gave him On our way there he was still requesting a few more days .

We found a incomplete motor, missing all the external parts. The engine we had originally bought choice 2 set in the corner not even started on , so he bragged that he was giving us this other great engine that was much more costly. We asked Rick for our money back, because clearly we were not getting what we had paid for. He refused and become very defensive.

We took our Motor and SOME parts he had on hand, including a radiator and air to air the was meant for a 379 not the 359 Pete that we owned. We had to "repay" Peterbilt to put on the missing external parts that were missing( AC Compressor, Air Compressor,Fan HUB, All the lines, )  and they had to modify the wrong parts. All in all this took 4 more weeks and 17.000. 

 After the truck got out of the shop it went down the road 800 miles before the bolts holding the fly weights shot through the timing cover, making the truck rapidly loose oil pressure and needless to say the Engine blew. We were left on the side of the road out almost 50.000 with nothing to show for it.  We had to have the truck trailer towed, which was costly, Paid Kenworth to find out what caused the engine to blow.

They stated it was internal, (THIS BEING RICK PLAUMANS workmanship or lack of) We have requester numerous times that he honor his 5 year warranty, as of this date he has done NOTHING! He did not honor his agreement initially to complete the engine and ship it as he promised, He will not honor the warranty.

Rick states he has no money and is now trying to make catepillar responsible stating that their parts have a warranty. He is not a CAT certified Mechanic, and parts have no warranty when the problem is due to workmanship.  The warranty is with him not Catepillar, he is trying to pull a fast one .

BUYER BEWARE do not send a dime to Great Lakes American Diesel. Great Lakes Performance Diesel in Lackawanna NY. We now have no truck , have exhauseted all our resources, and are basically going to be out of business due to his unethical business practices. He brags that he stands behing his work............... But he has not!