Their manager quoted me a particular price as an estimate of the cost to rebuild the manual transmission in my Honda Civic and replace the clutch. When they opened the transmission, the price to fix it doubled, but I would have to pay for the labor if I didn't want them to fix it. Left with no other convenient option, I agreed to pay $1843 so that I could continue making it to full time work and full time classes at school.
They took 6 days to fix the car, 3 more than they told me it would take. As soon as I got it back, I noticed several problems immediatly. The transmission often would grind while attempting to shift, and the clutch made a whirring noise, like a bad bearing, when it was engaged (after finishing the shift). Manager Dan told me to drop it off. They looked at it and said nothing was wrong.
I complained of problems again the next week, they changed the oil and told me nothing was wrong, but their service tech told me that the wrong oil had originally been put into my newly rebuilt tranny by another employee who was no longer working there. This would become a trend, every time there was a problem, they blamed it on a guy who was fired or quit.
After less than three weeks, I was on the freeway and found myself unable to shift out of fifth gear, the shifter was wobbly and no gears were available. I had to coast to a stop on the shoulder and fiddle with it for a few minutes until it "popped" back in and I could shift again. Later that week in a parking lot the transmission made a loud crunching noise and I skidded to a stop with the front wheels locked up. After waiting for several hours to be towed they took almost a week to tell me that the failure was due to my own "abusive" driving and I'd have to pay another $2000 to have my car back in working order. It took hours on the phone, several hundred dollars, and my trusty lawyer to convince them to reconsider. They finally admitted that they installed the clutch wrong and they were responsible for the break.
This time it took almost two weeks to fix my car, and I convinced them to allow me to rent a car under agreement that they would reimburse me for the rental fee. This turned out to be anothe one of their lies - get everything in writing from these crooks! They will not provide paperwork if you ask for it, in fact the manager literally yelled at me using profane language when I asked for an itemized report of each piece that was replaced or repaired during the original repair.
After this trouble, I couldn't believe that the transmission still didn't work right, I noticed it immediatly and turned around right after leaving the parking lot to complain, the owner talked to me and told me to bring it in next week. I did so, after experiencing two more episodes of not being able to shift out of fifth on the freeway (real scary when everyone is going 65 and you need to coast to a stop). Another thing to mention is that every time I got my car back, the alignment was off in a different way. First it pulled left, then right, then right way more, etc. Each time they did major work on it. I had receipts for an alignment performed by Meineke next door to their shop a week before they did their first work, but they denied any responsibility and left me hanging on that problem too.
After bringing it in again, they told me they would have to put in a "new" transmission. I dropped the car off, and had to wait another 11 days before I could drive it again. These guys were delaying on purpose, all the while I'm paying for a rental car they promised they would pay for but in the end they refused to do that too.
The final repair was obviously not a new transmission but a rebuilt unit with black spray paint on it, but it seemed to work. Other big problems were immediatly apparent, though. The shifter was now a few inches off, meaning the neutral was now where 5th gear used to be. Every gear was a couple of inches further away from me, now in 5th gear I have to stretch out of the seat and the shift boot has since torn because of it. They claimed that I was imagining things when I complained about that one. The clutch never worked right, I eventually had to put in another one myself during summer vacation, now it works fine.
I recently discovered that they totally mangled my disk brake shields, the vent piece that goes on the hub just inward of the disk. Looks like they pounded them with a hammer for a long time.
They even lost the lock to my lugnuts, and blame the guy who doesn't work there anymore...
These guys will lie to you. They will yell profanities at you right in their office after you are polite with your concerns. The home office will call you back with your concerns but won't help out a bit. They will sabotage other parts of your car (alignment). They will delay repairs just to inconvenience you. They will blatantly not honor their warranty until you threaten legal action. They will screw you so bad that you will lose out on a lot of money, a lot of time, and a lot of piece of mind. I had a hell of a stressful 7 month nightmare with these jerks, and I had to walk away letting them win and paying for more repairs myself.
Don't ever consider doing business with AAMCO Transmissions!
Paul
Beaverton, Oregon
U.S.A.
0 comments