On May 20, I had Cottman Transmission tow my car, a 1979 Pontiac Bonneville to their location on Culebra Rd. The mileage on it was 39,429.0. Albert said please dont drive it anymore.
I had told him that the car was not going into different gears after driving it. I called on Monday and spoke to David F. (?) and he said he could knock the job out in about 2-3 days.
Albert told me the job to overhaul the transmission would run $695.00. I called a couple of times and when I did, Albert would tell me that they had other "top dollar jobs"ahead of mine.
I had initially spoken to Albert about payment arrangements. We agreed that I could pay half and give him my title till I paid off the balance. About the middle of the week, I got scared of leaving him my title & called to let him know that I would pay with my credit card. He chuckled and said that they would "bump my car up a notch." They called me later and told me that I would need another flywheel since the other one was cracked. I said ok. And asked if they would save me the old one.
I would call and ask about the status of my car, since it is the only car I have and was told that it was not ready yet that they were having trouble getting the right flywheel. The next day, I said that I would get a ride up there, then Albert said not to in case something was wrong. On Friday, May 27, David called & told me rather rudely that my car was ready. This was about 3pm.
I waited for my daughter, who was in the 5th grade to come home on the bus and called a friend Jimmy B. To give me a rie to pick my car. It is probably a 25mi trip one way. She went with us.
When we get there it is around 5pm. We go in and can see my car sitting in the shop. I thought that it was still sitting on the rack since it was sitting up higher on the front end than normal. Why I said nothing I'll never know. My friend notices it too. David F. Comes out to the counter and I immediately noticed that he smelled of alcohol. My daughter noticed that also. Albert gave me the repair order that doesnt include the flywheel.
I noticed that the mileage was only 3/10s of an extra mile. They said that the car had been road tested. I later noticed a number of descripencies on that work order.
The car shakes very badly at first and with proof that they put on the wrong flywheel, I discovered that this is not the same driveshaft.
Numerous calls to the head office have resulted with them saying that I would have to take my car back there since they were the ones that I paid. David would later say over the phone on a 3 way conversation that my car was old. They said that the rearend was getting ready to go out. Albert got a person from a neighboring business and said he was ase certified. This person said that the shaking was from the engine balancer. David said the crankshaft was bad.
Albert said I could get another rearend (rear axle) for $895.00. The balancer got replaced but not by them. The car still shakes badly. I wanted to get re-repaired at cottmans on Patricia, but the head office said that I couldn't. This cottman was the one that called the one on Culebra and told them that they had put on the wrong flywheel. I couldnt find out what they said.
But they did tell me that the rearend was going out also. I've gone approx. 900 miles and this hasnt happened. As I said this is the only car that I have. We live out of the city limits wher there is no bus line.
I should mention, that even this car is old, it still kept on going, but never did it have this problem till after cottman got finished with it.
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