ON 4-27-07, I brought my daughter's 1999 Volkswagen Jetta in to Cottman Transmission in Duluth Georgia at Cottman Transmission Center of Duluth 3885 B Peachtree Industrial Blvd Duluth, GA 30096 (770) 476-4405 (770) 418-0895.
It would occasionally "jump" and would take a few minutes to warm up in the morning before it would go into gear. A mechanic by the name of Rob test drove the car and indicated that it seemed to be a minor problem.
He asked me if I wanted him to examine it further and I said yes. He put it on the lift and removed the transmission pan and brought it out to me to see. He showed me the bottom of the pan which had a tiny amount of a silver type goo in it.[about the size of a dime]
Rob told me that these were metal shavings and that it indicated that metal parts were wearing out. He suggested that I allow him to pull the transmission out of the car and service it. I told him I was on a limited budget and asked him how much it would cost. He said that it could be as high as $1000.00 but would probably be less than that.
He then asked me to pay him $400.00 up front toward repairs and parts. I thought I was dealing with a reputable company and mechanic so I put the charge on my Capital One Visa Card fully expecting that that price [$400.0] would cover the entire cost of repairs with the remote possibility that the absolute worst case scenario would be an additional $600.00 as Rob had clearly led me to believe.
On Monday, April 30, I got a call from the mechanic Rob at Cottman transmission. He told me the cost of repairs would be $2538.00.
I was floored by this statement and told Rob how displeased I was. I knew right then and there that I was somehow being hoodwinked.
This amount was inflated to 3 times the amount that Rob and I had talked about as being the "worse case scenario." It was painfully obvious that an attempt was being made to unreasonably appropriate an additional $2138.00 for what I was told might be just a minor problem.
This unwarranted attempt to unscrupulously get more money out of me became even more apparent when I told Rob that I didn't want to do business with him and that I felt that he had knavishly inflated the price because the transmission was already out of the car and I was "at his mercy" so to speak.
I told him to put the transmission back in the Jetta and I'd come pick it up.
He then immediately dropped the price to $2000.00 to try to persuade me to let him do the work.
The fact that he dropped the price by $538.00 within minutes of my protest seems to prove that he was price gouging.
Again, I told him to put the transmission back in the Jetta so that it would drive just like it did when I brought it in to the shop.
He then hit me with another bombshell.in a rude and mean-spirited harangue he said:
"For the $400.00 you already paid, I'll throw the transmission in the trunk of the car and you can have it towed off and if you want it put back in the car it will cost you an additional $400.00."
That would have been $800.00 in total for them to do absolutely nothing to repair the transmission. This was/is outrageous and in my mind borders on the criminal.
I am contemplating taking legal/criminal action against Cottman transmission [and/or Rob] and have already contacted the Governor's Office Of Consumer Affairs. As well as the better Business Bureau in Atlanta GA.
Later on 4-30-07, I called Cottman Transmission back and spoke with the owner/manager named Linda. I told her what Rob had said about throwing the transmission in the trunk and wanting $400.00 more just to put the car back the way it was when I brought it in. I let her know that I considered his actions to be the worst kind of bait-and-switch coercion I had ever experienced.
To her credit, she apologized for Rob's behavior and assured me that the transmission would be put back into the Jetta and that it would run the same as it did when I first brought it to her.
We picked up the Jetta two days later and it did run the same as when we brought it in.
I called Linda back five days after that and asked her how much of the $400.00 dollars she was going to refund to me because absolutely no repairs had been done, no parts had been ordered or installed and that the service that had be partially paid for [$400.00] had not been rendered.
She told me she would not refund anything.
At that point, I called my credit card company to dispute the charges.
Mick
Dacula, Georgia
U.S.A.
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