7/29/05 Brought vehicle in to get problem with transmission found. Although we were told they would know by Saturday we did not get a call until Monday and the transmission was still being looked at.
8/01/05 Scott told us that the Rear Main Seal, U-Joints, Yoke, Rear end Service, Clutch, Pressure Plate, Pilot Bearing, Release Bearing and Flywheel resurfacing needed to be done. We took a look at the parts that day and signed authorization to get that repaired. There was no way we could have authorized repair on the transmission because at the time they were not aware of what was wrong with the transmission.
8/01/05-Evening. I received a call from Scott stating that they found out what was wrong with the transmission and wanted to speak to Joseph. I called Joseph at work and he called and spoke to Jonathan. Jonathan told him the problem with the transmission and Joseph told him he would have to call him back because he needed to speak to his wife.
We discussed it and decided that a total bill of 2800.00 was more than we could afford and for him to call him back and tell him not to do any work at all and we would just pay them for taking the transmission out and putting it back in because although it did not run well it was still running.
Jonathan informed him that they had already done the work we had authorized and that they could drop the price depending on how much we could pay. Joseph threw out the number of 2000.00 and Jonathan told him he could not go that low and Joseph asked about 2200.00 and Jonathan told him the lowest he could go was 2500.00 which was what the price should have been.
(The first day we brought the truck in we agreed to allow them to take the transmission out for 295.00 and if we allowed them to do the work that would apply that to the total bill. To get a better idea my husband asked So if the total is 500, it'll only be 205. At which point Scott stated that was how it worked. Once we agreed to the intial work which was the Rear Main Seal, U-Joints, Yoke, Rearend Service, Clutch, Pressure Plate, Pilot Bearing, Release Bearing and Flywheel resurfacing, I asked Scott if the 295.00 was deducted from this amount. He told us it was. We agreed to get it done but came home and I calculated the amount and the 295.00 had not been taken out of that total. My best guess and the 300.00 Jonathan took off the total was only what he should've taken off to begin with.)
Joseph told Jonathan that he would have to call me and get back to him before they were allowed to do any work.
Joseph called me back and informed me that the work had already been done (the work that we had authorized) and that they agreed to lower the total to 2500.00. Because half the work had already been completed, it would have been pointless to not finish the work in the transmission but Joseph and I agreed that they could do the work on the transmission only if they show us the bad parts first.
Joseph called back and found out that even though it had been less then 5 min Jonathan had left work. He told Scott that he did not want any work to be done on the transmission until we had a chance to look at the old parts. Scott agreed and later Scott called me at the house because he had been talking to my husband at work to tell me that the transmission would be at their 1960 location and not at the Chimney Rock location as we have previously been told. I told that was fine and we would come by tomorrow to look at the parts before they did any work.
8/02/05 (All times are approx)
9:00a Joseph spoke to Jonathan on the phone and was informed Jonathan would call him back.
10:00a After waiting for Jonathan to call him back Joseph called Jonathan again and Jonathan informed Joseph that they didn't have the parts yet.
10:30a Joseph asked me to call and speak to Jonathan because he was not able to get anything out of him. We were told the previous night that the parts for would ready first thing in the morning. I called Jonathan and he told me they were still working on putting it together. I did not know he meant they were working on the transmission because Joseph and I were both under the impression that because we didn't authorize the work they wouldn't do it.
11:00 am Joseph called back again to ask about the parts and was told that they had been working on the truck for three hours even though both Joseph and I told both him and Scott to do no work on the transmission until we saw the parts the previous evening. He became very upset and would not allow Joseph to say anything stating that they had gotten authorization. He also told my husband that he had to pay someone to drive for an hour to bring the old parts. Which is our legal right and he wasn't doing us a favor. If Jonathan had any doubt about the job he should have asked Joseph that when he first called but apparently he thought he knew better and because he hadn't talked to Scott he would just start the job.
They had only gotten our permission to do the work that was done on 8/01/05 which we were given a written estimate which we signed. The work for the transmission was not on the documentation.
11:15am I called and spoke to Jonathan hoping that I would be able to get more information because he would not allow my husband to speak. He did the same with me. I was not able to get one word in without him overriding me. As a last effort I started to yell at him to be quiet but that did no good and he continued to talk over me. With no option available, I told him we would contact a lawyer. His response to me was and I quote If you want to play games with me I will play games with you, then he hung up on me.
11:20am I then called him back to get his supervisors name and contact and contacted his supervisor to inform him of what was going on.
12:00pm
We then went to the location to talk to him without being threatened and hung up on. He may believe working on our vehicle is a game but we do not and we did not want to play any games with him. We wanted to get this resolved and Jonathan would not allow us to speak on the telephone and was very aggressive. We walked in and I told him I thought we could find out what's going on without being threatened and hung up on. He told me he had not threatened me. I told him No, sir, you said If you want to play games we can play games. He then responded that I was yelling it him and I deserved it. He also said that he threatened me because I threatened him. I asked him how I did that. He told me by telling him I was going to contact a lawyer. I informed him that we had every right to contact a lawyer because they were doing illegal work on our vehicle. He yelled at us to get out of his shop.
He did not attempt to get the situation resolved but continued to say the same thing over and over again that he had said on the phone. He still was not giving us an opportunity to speak. He also kept saying that he wanted us to leave because he was not going to argue with us. He seemed to miss that an argument involved more than him talking and he would not give us a chance to talk.
My husband and I continued to try to talk to him and get this resolved and only after we apologized several times did he apologize but said it was a misunderstanding and continued to say we authorized it. He did not apologize for working on the vehicle without permission but for threatening me and said that he says that when people upset him. He showed us paperwork from the previous day that included the Clutch, rear main seal, U Joint, Yoke Rear Axle Service, Pressure plate, Pilor Bearing, realease bearing and flywheel resurfaced. That came to a total of 1239.57 and we did authorize that work to be done but it did not include anything in the transmission because at the time the transmission had not been finished being looked at. We know exactly what we authorized because we wrote everything done from the list. We did not authorize for any work done to the transmission because we told both Scott and Jonathan that before any work was done we wanted to see the parts. Jonathan admitted to us that he thought we wanted to get the work done as long as we saw the parts. So apparently he did hear part of what we said the previous day but didn't bother to hear the rest.
Jonathan calmed down a bit so that we could have a civil conversation and we explained to him that we did want the job done but that first we wanted to see the parts which is what we told both of them when they asked us the previous day. He continued to state that Scott never told him and he was under the impression that although we never gave authorization they should work on the transmission. He then went on the say that he could put any part in a box and say that they were the ones that went out and that we would believe it.
We again were able to get him to calm down and went ahead and got the work done because we felt we had no other option. My husband was already 2 hrs late to work and would have lost his job all together if he didn't go into work. Plus they had already done the work. Jonathan made it clear if we did not get the work done he would damage the vehicle.
8/03/05
We picked up the vehicle today and it was not until today that we were able to see the bad parts.
8/04/05
Discovered rubber stopper missing on transmission.informed Jonathan of this. Mechanic stated the part was not there when he worked on it. I know for a fact it was on the transmission. (If that was the truth he should have realized that and informed us so that dirt would not enter the transmission). Mechanic looked around shop and could not find it. Jonathan told us in a very condescending tone I don't have it but we'll look for it and I'll spend a dollar on it if I have too. As of 9/12/05 he has yet to contact us regarding that part.
It appears that Jonathan realized his mistake or that he was aware of it the entire time because on the original paperwork, the paperwork that we authorized the initial work he tried to cover what he had done. On the work order that it says Work Authorized then it shows Clutch Service which is what we authorized. The interesting part is that below it is written Trans 1260.43 and circled 2500.00. There are three things about this that proves he knew we didn't authorize it with the initial job and he attempted to cover the mistake. The first is that the handwriting is different and you can see this by looking at the numbers, they are written very differently. The second that strikes us as odd is that whomever wrote this writes harder then the first person. The date for the Clutch Service was 8/01/03, well they had not determined the problem with the transmission until Monday 8/01/03 evening. My husband works from 12pm-10pm so unless this store is open past 10pm there is no way he would have been able to authorize that work on that day. We did not get a call from Scott until nearly 6pm when they found out what the problem with the transmission was. The third thing is the last item entered for service shows 1 rebuilt transmission, that is the only thing where the first letter of each word is not capitalized. It simply shows that we authorized the initial work and Jonathan took it upon himself to allow the techs to work on the transmission without authorization.
Please stay away from Cottman. The manager of this location is a very angry man and his management allows him to behave any way he pleases.
A
Houston, Texas
U.S.A.
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