Is My Mechanic Treating Me Fairly - Is This His Problem or Mine?

I have a lovely 1990 Chrysler New Yorker in very good condition with
80,000 original miles. In April of this year it had approx. 65,000
miles and I had to have the automatic transmission completely rebuilt
for about $2600.(canadian), but the work was done in California. The
warranty was 6 months or 12,000 miles and had just expired. This week
I noticed that on rare instances (once or twice in 300 miles) the
automatic shift into low gear didn't seem quite as smooth so I decided
to have it checked. I took the car to a Chrysler dealership, explained
my concern and requested that they check things. After two hours of
labour they advised that the mechanic could find nothing wrong and had
"reset the codes".
I picked the vehicle up and drove it less than one mile when the
transmission started lurching very badly (enough to throw us forward
against the seat belts). It did this approx. 5 times in 100'. I drove
one more block to the house with the car placed manually in low gear
and then called for a tow truck to take the car back to the
dealership. I am now being told their transmission specialist (not the
mechanic that did their original check and "code reset") had rechecked
things and decided that I now need a new transmission.
I am having a hard time with this explanation. The transmission
had been working okay until I took it to the dealership (with the
exception noted in paragraph one above). They work on it for two
hours, give it back to me and now it is totally undriveable after
driving it for less than one mile. I can't help but feel that their
mechanics "tinkering" might be the problem. Is that possible? I would
like to hear some opinions and advice on this problem, particularly
how to deal with the dealership.

 

This was your first mistake. You should have chosen a rebuilder that
offers a longer warranty. Even Scramco offers a 36 month/36,000 mile
warranty, of course it's a bit more expensive than their basic 12 month
/12,000
mile warranty. The 6 month warranties are for people that are rebuilding
their
trans so they can sell the car quick.

Well to be brutally honest you don't got a leg to stand on. You can of
course go yell at the dealership all you want, but the fact is that you
never
would have took it to a mechanic if you didn't think there was something
wrong.

Also, if it turns out to be some problem internally in the transmission,
then
nothing that someone could do to the outside of the transmission - except
perhaps pouring sand down the dipstick tube - would cause the trans to
completely collapse internally less than a mile from the dealership. If
this is
an internal failure, as opposed to something simple like a sensor came
unplugged or some such, then your beef is with the rebuilder, and the
dealership was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.

There are a couple things with this whole scenario I find disturbing:

1) Why did it take 2 hours to find nothing wrong? It seems to me that a
20 minute test drive should have been enough to establish there was
nothing wrong.

2) Why were codes cleared at all? If the trans was operating properly there
would be no codes in the first place.

3) Why is the advice now that you need a rebuild? Why do you need a
new transmission? What do they think failed? Have they run through ALL
the troubleshooting steps in the service manual and the result of all of
them
is the trans is bad? Or, is this a snap diagnosis?

4) Why did you tow it back to the dealership when you are suspecting their
mechanic's tinkering was to blame? Haven't you heard the old "fool me once,
shame on me, fool me twice, shame on you"?

5) Why did you even choose to go to a dealership in the first place? You
obviously
didn't have the trans rebuilt 6 months ago at a dealership, so if you were
using
independent mechanics then, why the sudden switch back the dealership now?

Everyone knows that dealership repairs cost more than repairs done at an
independent auto repair shop, unless the independent is cheating you of
course,
mainly because the dealership service places automatically use new parts for
everything (even if what they are replacing is a cast iron exhaust manifold
or
some such) and the factory OEM parts are almost always the most expensive
parts as compared to the aftermarket.

For this reason it is typical that for most people particularly in larger
cities,
once the factory warranty has expired they start taking their vehicle to the
independent garages.

What you need to face now is you got a potential major repair here, and you
need to shop it around. Call the dealership and tell them you are going to
drive it around and get a second opinion - nothing personal, but with this
much money on the line your going to have to compare prices.

People have no qualms calling around to a dozen stores to save $5 on a
cd player, why should a $2K trans repair be any different?

Ted

 

Based on repair prices I keep hearing quoted in the area where I
live-some areas may have independent mechanics not booked for months
in advance-you just can't afford to keep a vehicle running for more
than a few years after EOW (end of warranty) unless you are doing you
own repairs. My next door neighbor sunk $3400 into having a Dodge
minivan "gone through", which wouldn't have an "ACV" of $3400 even if
the factory paint-the dull rose beige- weren't sloughing off.

I'm in the planning stages of a Jeep project and planning to use
fiberglass body parts. I looked around for a shop to paint them-new
fresh out of the mold fiberglass, no hardware attached, and me doing
reasonable surface prep, no dismantling involved, wipe it down and
shoot it-the "legitimate" body shops around here either stuck their
nose up at it unless they could have it as a running vehicle (so they
could take it back apart at $75 an hour....) or quoted me astonishing
prices. Finally I found a guy who redoes boats in his little quonset
hut who wanted the job and will get it if I don't go the gelcoat
route, but it was obvious these guys either had monster overhead or
wanted to retire to a penthouse in Manhattan.

 

If your comparing them to used car prices, then yes. For example,
if you have a 1994 Ford with a $1000 book value and 180K miles on the
odo that has a blown rod, then sure, you can buy a used 1997 Ford for
$4000 that has maybe 120K. Yes, the numbers are going to work out
in favor of the newer used car.

But it's a whole different ballgame if you have a vehicle with a clean,
straight
body, good paint, and screwed up engine and drivetrain., and your comparing
this vehicle plus rebuilt engine/drivetrain against a brand new vehicle.

As an owner of a 95 T&C myself I know a bit about these vehicles. While I
don't know what you mean by "gone through", let me tell you that a 90-95
minivan that has good interior, good paint, no rust, no accidents is
definitely
worth replacing both engine & transmission with rebuilt units, if the engine
is
a 3.3 or 3.8L model and does NOT have ABS or AWD.

Don't confuse independent mechanics with bodymen. The two are totally
different markets.

Body shops with rare exceptions pretty much exist as parasites on the auto
market, feeding off the insurance companies. The only kind of work they
bother with are vehicles that are 7-8 years old or younger, and the reason
is that is the range whereby the vehicle has this artificial value called
"book
value" that the automakers and insurance companies use, that is actually
high enough to where the insurance companies have an interest in saving
money by repairing, rather than replacing.

You got to think of it this way. What, really, is the real intrisic value
of a
vehicle? Well, the answer is the following: if new, the value is the sum
cost
of all parts plus assembly plus profit. This dollar amount cannot be
reached
by most of the market without financing. So, most new vehicle owners are
stuck paying a loan over 5 years or whatever, and so you got to make sure
that at any point during that loan, that with AVERAGE use, the vehicle value
does not dip below what the owner owes. Why - because if the owner
defaults, the loan guarantee organization isn't going to take a loss.

Imagine going into a bank and saying you want to borrow $20K, and spend
it on an item that 6 months from now will be worth nothing - and by the way,
you want to make payments on this $20K over the next 10 years. The
bank isn't going to make the loan without collateral. Thus, the banks and
the auto industry and the insurers have come up with this idea that cars
somehow depreciate at some formula based on the total mileage, etc. which
produces a depreciation curve that approximates what a financed auto
loan would create.

In reality, of course, used car prices are set by the market - not by "book
value"
Many people discovered this to their dismay in 2002 when the used market
has been so flooded with vehicles (due to the 0% financing incentives) that
actual street value of used vehicles was much lower than KBB's book value.
But, if the automakers actually came out and told new car buyers this, it
would
cut into their business because new car buyers would not be able to count on
a "trade in" value.

Thus, we have book value, and thus we have an opening for body shops to
hold the insurers over a barrel on pricing. If book value says the heap is
worth
$20K and the body shop promises they can fix it for less than $20K then the
inurance companies are stuck paying the bill.

Ted