My Artworkz Designs Experience

Should you allow Mr Terry Fox of ARTWORKZDESIGNS LTD anywhere near your car or buy parts from him?

I’ll let you read about my personal experience of the appalling quality of workmanship and parts received from him and leave you to make up your own mind!

I ordered (AND paid for) several parts for my build in May 2022. Despite asking for these parts on many occasions they weren’t received until late April 2023, nearly a year later.

Due to the lack of progress on my car, despite several recurring requests for further money from Terry Fox, and my growing mistrust in what Mr Fox was telling me I repossessed my car in December 2022 along with some of the parts I originally supplied to him. Several parts that I originally supplied with my car “could not be found” and were therefore not returned to me.

In summary, my main dissatisfaction related to the quality of 3 particular items I was charged for:
£300 - Exhaust guard
The 2 openings for the exhausts to pass through on the exhaust shield do not line up with the openings on the car for the exhausts.
(Annex 1 to 5).

£950 - Window Frames
The window frames are not uniform. They have differing angles/measurements between one and the other.
(Annex 26 to 28)
and further evidenced by photos showing the measurements of both frames.
(Annex 29 to 38, NS & OS.)

£370 - Front Lamp Pods Aluminium
The lamp pods arrived broken due to a combination of shoddy workmanship and being poorly packaged prior to dispatch.
They appear crudely held together with "No More Nails" type adhesive, body filler and fibreglass. They would not stand up to flexing when on the car.
(Annex 6 to 9)

Due to the shoddy workmanship of these parts, for which I had prepaid £1,620.00, I was entirely unsatisfied with them when I eventually received them. I told Terry Fox that I wanted to return the items for a full refund as they were not of a satisfactory quality. This request was rebutted and I therefore had no other option but to take Artworkzdesigns Ltd to the Small Claims Court in October 2023.

During my dealings with Mr Fox, I was informed by him that the windscreen I had supplied with my car would not pass an IVA inspection as it did not contain the correct European approval. He said he could supply a correctly marked one for £750.00. This I agreed to and duly paid him. Mr Fox suggested I keep the original one to either resell or as a spare should the one fitted on the car get cracked at any point in the future, I confirmed that I would indeed like to keep the original windscreen and would arrange for it to be collected by a trusted courier.

Despite making several requests that the original windscreen be made available for my courier to collect it wasn’t. I received very feeble excuses each time I made the request as to why it was not possible. I further requested that the windscreen be made available for collection via courier while we were at the court hearing. Mr Fox’s response to my request this time was “Oh, that got cracked a long time ago so I disposed of it!” Another feeble excuse / lie that he had not mentioned at any point prior to this when discussing the return of the windscreen. This was yet another one of parts that I originally supplied “lost” to this atrocious man.

4 months after I had repossessed my vehicle and 18 months after I had paid him, I finally received the items from Mr Fox that I had ordered.

To say I was disappointed is an understatement. The photos of the items I received are included in Section 1- Initial Letters, Sub-section 1A - Initial Letters - Letter 26_04_23below.

I asked Mr Fox if he genuinely believed that the items he had sent to me were made to an acceptable standard as I definitely didn’t think they were. He said that they were “well made and in excellent condition when they had left him.” He claimed that the filler that had been used to stick the light pods together was of “good quality” and that it must have been the couriers who damaged them in transit and caused them to be broken on arrival. I argued that the pods should have been made and packaged well enough to make the journey, after all they were supposed to be suitable to be fitted to my vehicle and stay intact whilst driving it which it clearly would not have done!

He claimed that the exhaust guard “should fit” onto my vehicle but was meant to be “cut up and put on the vehicle in several pieces in order to make it fit.”

He also claimed that the window frames were exactly as they should be.

I informed Mr Fox that I was not happy with the overall quality of the items he has supplied and that I wanted to return them to him for a full refund. Mr Fox refused to accept there was an issue and repeatedly told me the items were “well made” and that he wouldn’t issue a refund despite all of the evidence in front of him. Due to the persistent denial that the items were of poor quality and Mr Fox’s refusal to refund the money I had paid I applied to the Small Claims Court to claim my money back.

During the process of submitting evidence and completing the required paperwork for the court process Mr Fox repeatedly claimed, as his defence, that the items were “well made” and were of “suitable quality to be fitted to my vehicle.” This was the entire basis of his argument and his reasons as to why he contested my claim. He also claimed as part of his defence that the window frames had been made by Prova Designs Ltd which therefore meant that they were of good quality.

We eventually had our day in Court. I was able to show the Judge the quality of Mr Fox’s supplied items alongside new items that I later purchased from a reputable supplier in New York called Buy the Horns. When Mr Fox saw the alternative items that I had bought he actually commented that the items from my new supplier were “genuine” items rather than replica ones! The fact is that they are replica parts but they were of such good quality that they convinced him they were genuine parts from Lamborghini. It was obvious how poor the ones supplied by Mr Fox were when compared with the parts received form Buy the Horns. When the judge saw all of the items laid out together it was clear from his facial expressions that he could see that there was a massive quality difference between the items in front of him.

Despite this however, the judge dismissed the claim on a technicality.

The defence made by Mr Fox throughout the proceedings had been that the items were acceptable however when we sat in front of the Judge, after his items had been placed next to the new items I had bought, he changed his entire defence. His claim was now that he “hadn’t been given chance to rectify the issues” with the items he has supplied because I had repossessed my vehicle. He claimed that had my vehicle still been with him he would have “made good” the items and made sure that they were of “perfect quality” when the build was finished.

I wasn’t willing to incur further costs in order to transport my vehicle back to Mr Fox because I had no confidence whatsoever in his workmanship. I felt that any further work he may undertake would not be done to an acceptable standard and quality.

Due to the fact that I would not return my vehicle to Mr Fox for the items to be fitted and altered to make them “suitable” the judge had to rule that I “hadn’t given Mr Fox sufficient time to make good the items” and that because my initial verbal contract with Mr Fox was to “supply and install” items to build my vehicle my claim was dismissed.

For the claim to be dismissed on a “technicality” was indeed frustrating but it also highlighted that the quality of items received from Artworkzdesigns Ltd was abysmal. Mr Fox should not have needed the opportunity to “make good” the items. The items should have been well made to begin with and should have been suitable to fit to the vehicle. I think the underlying question we have to ask is "has anyone seen a finished car or better still, had their own car finished and delivered by Mr Fox?”