And double check the mounts, also.
I think that I just figured this out.
This is really an April Fool’s joke on the part of the OP.
Right, joe71c10?
Surely you could not be serious about this.
You mention the 5 speed manual transmission as being easy to reassemble, not like an automatic, etc, etc. There’s more to putting a manual together than meets the eye.
In my experience you are certainly correct about this. I had a 1965 Rambler with a 3 speed manual transmission. When the car was 5 years old, a snap ring broke in the transmission. The service station where I traded said that in the college town where I was attending graduate school, there was only one shop that could rebuild a manual transmission correctly. I took the advice. The charge wasn’t cheap, but the transmission worked well when the job was completed. Just removing the transmission on the model Rambler I had was a pain. The car had a closed driveshaft and the whole rear axle had to be dropped to remove the transmission.
I agree with Rod Knox. Make sure everything is good on your end. You never mentioned fluid.Mistakes are made unfortunately.Most trans rebuilders prefer to road test the vehicle before and after the job is done.No good deed goes unpunished!Yank the tranny out again. In Va. shops get three tries before going to court.
I don’t think the original post is a joke at all. In the auto world shops run into things like this every week; and even worse.
Some things are odd though.
If AAMCO doesn’t have the vehicle in hand at this point then how does AAMCO even know they did anything wrong? Or are they simply accepting responsibility in the interest of PR?
The OP says that AAMCO quotes 2 grand for the repair if THEY pull the transmission and 500 dollars if the transmission is brought in. So the OP is saying that AAMCO is charging 1500 bucks for a simple transmission R & R? Wow, I’d do that all day long, every day of the week.
And it’s always possible to screw something up during the install. A guy brought a Subaru transmission in once that he had removed himself and this particular transmission was jumping out of 3rd gear. I repaired this by replacing the 3/4 shift fork and the 3/4 synchronizer sleeve and handed it back to him with a notation on the repair order that he MUST make sure that the through hole on the DOJs (inner joint on the halfshafts) were properly lined up with the holes in the stub axles on the transmission. (It’s possible to have them 180 degrees out and while the holes may appear to line up, in reality they are off just enough to cause all kinds of grief.
A week later this car was towed in and I found that he had lucked out on one side but missed the boat on the other. He had tried pounding the serrated pin in to no avail; eventually mushrooming the end of the pin and being in a position where the pin wouldn’t come back out.
Unfortunately, his pounding of the pin into the stub axles (which are part of the spider gears in the differential) caused some damage in the differential assembly and he was then stuck with a transmission that was going to cost a small fortune to repair.
Ok, assuming that the original post was not a joke, I will attempt to put the situation into terms that the OP might understand better than the previous explanations:
A man goes into a restaurant and orders a hamburger, and he specifies that he wants it cooked “medium rare”.
A few minutes later, his burger is brought to the table, and after biting into it, he discovers that has been cooked to the point where it is “well done”.
He calls the waitress over and reports his dissatisfaction with the hamburger.
The waitress replies, “No problem sir, I will have the chef cook another one so that you get a medium rare burger”.
The customer responds, “No, in place of the bad burger, I want the 12 oz sirloin instead”.
The waitress explains that he can have the sirloin instead of the burger if he is willing to pay an additional $10.
The customer replies that he is entitled to the 12 oz sirloin as a replacement for his bad burger.
The manager arrives and repeats what the waitress stated, and even goes so far as to tell the customer, “If the replacement burger is not to your satisfaction, we will cook a third burger, and maybe even a fourth one until we give you a burger that is cooked to your satisfaction, but we will not replace the burger with a steak unless you pay for a steak”.
The moral of the story for the OP:
You paid for a hamburger.
You are not entitled to a steak unless you pay for a steak.
I agree that it sucks that you’re out the time and labor (and have the aggravation) of having to pull the transmission a second time, but AAMCO is re-doing the rebuild, and that’s all you can expect from them. I had a similar experience with a junkyard transmission years ago, and I was similarly P.O.'d about it.
However, it certainly speaks of the competence (or utter lack of it) of AAMCO that they screwed this up so badly. I truly hope the second time around is better.
…and I’d add as an afterthought, that it would do wonders to build goodwill for AAMCO if they’d just bite the bullet and help you with the reinstall. It would probably pay off 10-fold for them down the road if they did. But corporations don’t usually think like this, and some harried, half-wit middle manager at AAMCO is only looking at his bottom line, and at keeping his job in the current economic conditions.
Maybe it’d be worth trying to find someone higher up.
What amazes me is that the OP seems to be experienced, what he is experiencing now is just how the industry operates, why the suprise, it has always been like this.
I’ll make it simple: You paid for the milk but you don’t get the cow.
He clearly explained that it was a matter of not having time (that was meant to be @ok4450, two posts above).
The transmissions are not that difficult to remove; especially since they just performed the procedure.
They’ve spent more time contacting corporate headquarters, posting here and arguing the point, etc. than would be spent on simply getting into the mindset of “get it done”, perform the trans R & R, and getting it over with.
Why did you pose the question “Does anyone else find this a bit shady?” if you already had your mind made up?
It seems to me that if you already had your mind made up, posing this question is a waste of everyone’s time.
The fluid and linkages are fine. I did the reinstall myself and, as always, triple checked everything.
I even took it to a local shop I used to work for to double check my work before calling AAMCO. my installation was correct in all aspects.
I made sure I hadn’t dropped the ball before I ever had Kevin Contact AAMCO
Like most shops, AAMCO high balled the original estimate.
They then said if we brought them just the trans they would check it for free and let us know how much the repair would be.
as stated before, they assured Kevin the fact the trans wouldn’t be in the car wouldn’t be an issue when checking or REPAIRING it.
OP–
Are you trying to convince us or are you trying to convince yourself?
An unofficial tally of the responses makes it appear that you have not convinced most of us.
Having an Associates Degree in auto technology and several years experience means nothing.
I’ve worked for dealers who hired people with Associates Degrees with some experience and most of them were clueless in the real world. I’m not saying that this applies to you; only that based on my experience I don’t feel that your qualification carries a lot of weight.
We had one guy with an AD in Diesel Technology (and a great guy too) who was given a simple VW diesel won’t start problem as his first job. He had no idea as to where to start and the obvious answer (and the correct one as it turned out) was a blown glow plug fuse; a 5 minute fix.
You have stated this transmission is simple to repair, you have an AD in auto technology, and several years experience so I ask again; why didn’t YOU fix the transmission?
Go and buy a “crate motor” from your local GM Dealer. If the motor turns out to be sour they will not pay your R+R. Now not saying you could not go to the Parts or Service Manager and get them too, but most likely default policy says 'NO"
I bought a TH350 from a rebuilder, I asked “any warranty” the guy told me I would have too come back and let him inspect my install and then I would have a warranty, but not one that included R+R. Initaly no warranty on a customer installed part, after inspection of my install, parts warranty only, tha’s the way it works.
Va doesnt really stick up for the little man,like other states do-they never helped me out in any of my troubles.That said Aamco must do things right occasionaly.anyway in my neck of the woods there are 2 very good tranny shops and they are private owned-Kevin
I?m siding with AAMCO on this one.
They are willing to fix the problem; you just need to bring the transmission back. They didn?t remove the transmission nor did they put it back in and more importantly they didn?t get PAID to do that.
That?s the chance YOU took when you sent part out to be repaired. The removal and replacement is on your dime, the part is on their dime. Been there done that. Yea it sucks, but they weren?t paid to remove and replace.
You paid for a rebuilt transmission, AAMCO warranted a rebuilt transmission. AAMCO is standing behind their work, you bring it back and they will fix it.
Had you bought a new transmission and it was assembled wrong at the factory, it still would have been up to YOU to remove and replace.
Sorry but AAMCO has done nothing WRONG.
My opinions are subject to change with new facts.