I spent years infiltrating Aamco and found it was all true.
In 1970, I said to my wife, "This car is leaking half a cup of transmission fluid a week. I'm going to have to check the modulator valve". Before I got off work that day, she had taken it to Aamco and paid them the price we paid for the whole car, to overhaul the transmission for a minor leak. Both of us being 20 years old, she was stupid enough to do that, and I was stupid enough to hit the ceiling about it. I offered to take the transmission out and hand it to Aamco, but, no deal. They had my money, and that was the end of it.
The 34th street Aamco in St. Petersburg Florida is now out of business.
In 1985, my van started making a grinding noise in the transmission. I went to the Aamco on Tyrone Blvd in St. Petersburg Florida and had them charge me $1000 to replace the gear with a tooth broken off, but I decided that I would not be able to go through life without knowing about transmissions. I took night classes in rebuilding automatic transmissions. My teacher was supposedly the best Aamco mechanic in the state of Florida. Lucky me! I actually like him as a person.
During those classes, I rebuilt several transmissions, one of them being a Ford FMX for my wife's car, just for practice. Some months later, it was time for my annual service on the Aamco transmission in my van. I took the wife's car to the Tyrone store and said, "I want whatever you call changing the oil, filter, and doing adjustments". The manager said the transmission was "all tore up" and needed an overhaul, along with the standard "I can't guarantee you'll make it out of the parking lot if you don't buy an overhaul".
It is true that he can't guarantee a job I didn't buy, but I love the way they turn that phrase. It's so deliciously frightening!
I did not buy an overhaul for a transmission that was less than a year old, and that I personally built, myself. (It never did fail in the ten years we kept it, plus as long as the wife's son had it.) I did go back home and bring the van to the same store. I told the manager the same thing and he said the same thing. I pulled out my warranty papers and told him to "go ahead". He called me something that resembles "rooster vacuumer", but he did not rebuild the transmission. Go figure. So I wrote a letter to Aamco headquarters in Pennsylvania and told them all about it.
The Tyrone store is no longer in business. I'd like to think I helped with that.
That left me going to Clearwater for my annual service. I took the wife's car there, said the same thing, and they said the same thing. Then I revealed that the man who taught the transmission classes worked there. End of ripoff, at least for me.
A few years later, I was going to try rebuilding an Aerostar transmission for fun and profit. It was "found on road dead" and towed in by the police. I got it for $500 because the transmission wouldn't do anything. I took it apart and marveled at how good it looked inside. I found nothing wrong, so I took the torque converter to my old teacher, where he had moved, to the Countryside Aamco and asked him if it was O.K. He took the input shaft from my hand, stuck it in the torque converter, and fooled around a bit. He pronounced it healthy and I proceeded to rebuild the transmission. I had that transmission in and out of that van three times before I found that the torque converter had stripped splines where the input shaft goes into it. What a waste of time and effort!
The moral of that story? The best Aamco transmission mechanic in the state wouldn't know a bad torque converter if he had it in his lap. I guess that's because half the cars that go to Aamco don't need a new torque converter, but they sell you one, anyway. That's the only way I could figure a guy with 20 years of experience not needing to know what a stripped spline looks like.
I've dealt with several Aamco stores, took the classes, worked with their mechanics, and rebuilt several, myself. I know for sure that every Aamco I've ever been in makes it a practice to sell a complete rebuild, using scare tactics and lies, even when they know for sure that nothing is wrong with the transmission.
Aamco is an equal opportunity ripoff. I am not an ignorant person whining about being taken advantage of because of some personal problem with my sex, race, or religious beliefs. I'm brilliant, I did my homework, I'm a "white man with a job", and Aamco tried to cheat me three consecutive times after I had enough specific education to know what they were doing.
Do NOT go to AAmco unless you already know you need a complete overhaul and are willing to pay high retail for it. You can check the other testimonials on this site about how they handle the warranty you will get for your money.
Wilson
St. Petersburg, Florida
U.S.A.
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