I took my 1999 ford escort into cottmans to have the transmission serviced (fluid and filter changed). I noticed that the gears were not shifting properly. The cost was to be $45. It was to only take one hour. After not hearing from them for two hours, I went in there and they said that they didn't service it because when they did a test on it, they found something was wrong with the third gear. It wasn't shifting properly and the fluid was burnt.
He told me that the only way he could find out what was wrong with it was to get into the transmission. He said that he would charge me $325 to look in the transmission. He told me that their would be no work done on it until he called me with a price and that they only fix the problem.
I had to go get a rental car at $40 a day and he had my car for a day and a half before he even called me. He told me that my transmission was totally shot. I had to have the whole thing rebuilt. This was news to me because the car wasn't driving that bad and it has been shifting like that for a month. He told me that he could rebuild it for $1900.
My car has over a 100,000 miles on it and has some body damage.
I've been thinking about trading it in to get what I can for it.
I told him that I didn't want to spend that much money on this car. He then tried to have me finance it. I thought the price was too high. I called a few places to see what they charged, and the three other places that I called only wanted $1200-$1400.
I told him that I didn't want the car fixed and too go ahead and put my transmission back together.
He told me that it was going to cost me another $500 to put the transmission back together for labor (16 hours at $60 an hour).
I told him that my car was working fine when I brought it in and now I'm going to have to tow my car out of here.
So, cottman's had my car for six days, and my wife had to go there and pay them $325 and call a tow truck to tow it back to our house. When my wife got to cottman's, the employee told her that the transmission was next to the car on the ground in pieces and would not help her put the pieces in the car.
Luckily, a nice tow truck driver put the pieces of the transmission into the car. Then when the tow truck driver was hooking up the truck, the engine almost fell out because they to the motor mounts out.
So, I had to go out and buy a new car and put very little money down on it and have a car payment because I could not trade this car in.
My car is now sitting in the front of my house, with the transmission, in pieces, in the back of the car. It was running just fine a week ago. Cottman's should have told me that besides the $325 to take the transmission apart, it will be $500 more to put it back together. I would have never agreed to let them look at it.
0 comments