Arnold Motor Supply

Had a Chevy 350 long block turned into a 383 at the machine shop. The initial estimate was that it was going to take 4 months to complete this build for me. 2 years later the engine was finally done. Went in to pick it up and was told that my 882 heads were damaged. I asked for them and they said they no longer had them. They said that they had thrown them away. This was never discussed prior to me picking up, the last I had heard from them the heads checked good. If you want a job to take 5x longer and have parts stolen from your build, this is the place for you.

Pre-Covid or right after everything started calming down I took my block there to be machined and have the surfaces flattened and cleaned. They had me put my name on the board with my phone number and engine designation, had a good chat with them and all seemed well. However after 4 months of waiting and calling every few weeks I decided to go in and grab my motor as it appeared they were never going to get to it. They had erased my name off the board at some point and the engine parts had not moved from where I left them. They then told me the tools they needed to machine my engine were either missing or needed repaired but they weren't planning on fixing it soon. They gave me a belt to smooth my crank myself which was nice I suppose. Overall decent guys but they don't really care to get work done. Another time I got a crank machined there, it took a little over a month despite being told they weren't busy and I was pretty much first in line but i was told the machinist was on holiday, that was fine but I was charged double what I had been quoted for the work.

My family has used arnolds for all their machine work on engines for 20+ years (Marshalltown location) so when deciding on a machine shop I chose arnolds I went with the Ankeny location because it was the closest location still over an hour away. Conversation I had last year in July was since all I needed was refreshing surfaces and inspecting clearances 2 to 3 weeks it would be done. I delivered the parts in July 2021 and they were finally done in June 2022. Thats even after a dozen or more of phone calls trying to find out what's taking so long. Then after getting the parts back the block and connecting rods were rusted and not cleaned properly. Long story short poor workmanship and poor time management out of this machine shop I'm very disappointed

I have tried giving these guys business on three occasions now, and have had an extremely poor experience every time. I am working on a motorcycle rebuild and sought them out to do some work on the engine that their website says they can handle. On all 3 occasions, I called ahead and explained the work I was looking to have done. On all 3 occasions, I was told it would be no problem and to stop on down. On all 3 occasions, LITERALLY, I met with the guy in the shop and was given wishy-washy answers, was told they couldn't do it, and/or was told it'd cost some ridiculous amount. I am not exaggerating, case in point: I had my valves done and cylinders honed (the first job these guys failed at) by another shop. I then had the rest of the engine case parts blasted and cleaned by another guy. Unfortunately, he did not mask the engine case correctly and some of the media got into the case. It did not do any damage, but needed to be cleaned before reassembly so that the blasting media didn't damage the internals down the road. I do not have the tools to pull valves and simply needed Arnold to pull the valves, hot dip the case (as well we to remove some residual gasket and paint that was missed), and put it back together. Oh, I also forgot that I needed them to simply check that the new valve stem seals were seated fully, because they looked a bit crooked when I inspected earlier. Still, we're talking well under an hour of work for a professional in a fully outfitted machine shop. The engine was fully disassembled with the one exception of the valves being installed. They had very little disassembly to do. On the phone, as mentioned, I was told this would be no problem. When I got there and talked to the guy in person he started giving me excuses about how the tank dip wouldn't clean it at all (even though I'd taken it to another shop and they used that method flawlessly), it'd ruin the aluminum (I mentioned it was aluminum on the phone), how it doesn't matter if the stem seals are fully seated because "they will give enough", and so on. After asking a few more questions he then informed me that they could do it, but it'd cost $350+ because otherwise there just wasn't any money in it for them. So maybe that's what this is about. Money. He flat out told me he didn't want the job but would take it if he had to. I'm guessing he was trying to deter me by giving a high price, and it worked. This is the last time I will step foot in this store. I have given them 3 chances and they have failed to perform every time. How these guys stay in business, I will never know.

Both my wipers were bad. I stopped by and not only didn't they try and sell me the most expensive blades, but they offered to installed them. Arnold Motors I will be back. It's been along time since I have had service with a smile !!!