My daughter's car was acting funny so I had her take it to AAMCO in Riverside on Market st. She and others told me not to take it there, but against my better judgement I had them take it there for their free inspection. I usually take my car to my local trusted mechanic but I did not think they did transmissons. So my daughter's husband dropped the car off in the morning on Thursday May 14th right at 8am so that he would be one of the first to get checked.
We called around 1pm and they said they were just starting to look at it and we asked how come it took so long and they said there were 4 other cars ahead of us, yet we were the first ones there. Then we called them back again around 4pm and they told us that they found metal in the transmission and that the Motor Mounts needed to be replaced. The car is a 1990 Buick Le Sabre, but it only has 67,000 miles on it and was taken great care of by my father who recently passed.
Long story short the guy, Don, the manager told me and my daughter and her husband that he would replace the motor mounts included in the price of the transmission and the total price for 5 Motor Mounts and a rebuilt transmission would run between 1600 and 1900. So I said ok go ahead and fix it. Well the next day my daughter went by to check on the car and to get some things out of it, and she found it in their parking lot hood open and transmission a mess, they finally said that they had it fixed and she could come pick it up.
When her husband went to pick it up Don told her that the Freeze plug, (which is an 8 dollar part) was leaking really bad and needed to be replaced, (the freeze plug can only be replaced by taking out the transmisson so in essence instead of calling me and saying hey the freeze plug needs to be replaced while they had the transmisson out they waited until they put it all back together before telling us, hoping that they would get more money out of us by having to take the transmission out again) then Don told us that the Rotors and Brakes on our car were shot, he wrote it on the invoice and that is when we knew he was lying because we had just had them done a month ago.
So after paying 1900 dollars and leaving, I took it to my trusted mechanic who over the past 2 days has found that the Motor Mounts were never replaced, the brakes that AAMCO's manager Don said were shot, were in excellent condition, and that the transmission was put in wrong and could fall out due to one side being not put in correctly. I took photographs of all of the things that my mechanic pointed out, meanwhile I was with my mechanic for hours as the car was taken apart to be checked.
Now I have to pay 500 dollars to have new Motor Mounts put on the car, another 600 dollars to have the freeze plug fixed when AAMCO could have called me and told me when they saw it and replace it for the part which cost 8 dollars and labor which I am sure does not add up to 600 dollars, and I also have to pay for the transmission to be fixed the right way. I can say this, I will call them on Monday and give them one chance to rectify the situation by giving me back half of the 1900 dollars I paid.
If they do not rectify the situation I am disputing the transaction with my credit card company, I have 3 witnesses who were told that the Motor Mounts were included in the price. I have my Mechanic who is putting it in writing that these things were not done, I have photos of the things that are wrong with the car. I will also be contacting my attorney, the DMV, the Better Busineess Bureau, and the local media, Christina Gonzales at Fox 11 News. Do not ever take your car to AAMCO.
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