AAMCO Transmissions & Total Car Care

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/11/09) */
I am sorry that [redacted] feels the way that She does. We were very clear from the beginning on price. I made sure that she understood the price because her English was nit well spoken. I got two authorization codes from her to...

verify permission of the original sale. I asked her for her birthday and the last four of her social security number. I told her the price multiple times and she understood. We felt bad for the customer because she seem to be in a bad place and reduced the cost and did another repair at no charge because she said that she could not afford it. We have met face to face with the customer on four different occasions and her brother once. We have offered to work with her and try to get her financing for her repair. She did sign our authorization form when she dropped off the vehicle and again gave us her birthday and the last four of her social security number to authorize her repairs.
[redacted]
General Manager
XXX-XXX-XXXX
p.s. If you could please contact me Revdex.com.

I am rejecting this response because: I appreciate the Revdex.com contacting AAMCO to reach a resolution on this issue.  In my complaint regarding the damage to my vehicle and the refusal of AAMCO to listen to my concerns and offer a resolution I initially thought that having them repair the damage would be acceptable.  At this time I would rather take care of the repairs myself and refuse to take any additional business to the AAMCO.Although their response agrees to cover the repairs at no cost to me it also indicates that I somehow misunderstood the information shared during the conversations after I found the damage to my vehicle.  In addition, they are not accepting any responsibility for their mistakes which causes me great concern and makes it impossible for me to deal with AAMCO.If there is an option to have the repairs done at another facility that would be acceptable but dealing with AAMCO employees is not.
Regards,
[redacted]

We have acknowledged the customer's complaint.  Though we differ on the chain of events as described we were, and still are, willing to facilitate the repairs to the customer's vehicle at NO CHARGE.  This offer remains in effect and we are sorry it is not satisfactory to the customer.

When [redacted] came in he was greeted by me, I told him what was going on and he knew he signing permission to check over the car and he would be given a report of anything we find.  I even said again it was a courtesy check, cost nothing and he was under no oblation. The Techs have signed a statement that yes [redacted] was bad mouthing me every way and language possible but They said nothing of the sort. This is a false statement.  They said, as they were supposed to, that we are sorry for any delay in delivering a car. Yes we let him know continually we were doing everything we could to help him, in spite of the rude and nasty behavior and language. He was never spoken to or handled in any way that was not professional.  Unfortunately [redacted] has a number of recollection that simply are not true for he has even said that the tech told him that he did something wrong and apologized. This is simply not the truth. As to the battery when we opened the hood and saw the condition of the battery put a tester on it , it failed, The terminal housing was so rotted away by acid. I mentioned this to the customer and he said he new about it and was going to take care of it. when he was given a list of the other basic safety items checked he declined and there was no further communication about them. I did not offer to repair anything but the lines that we went out of the way to get parts for  and then repair the one line got get him on the road as we promised Sat morning. I called him when his car would not start. the battery was no good. the only thing we did was turn the key to start the car to put ck and top off the transmission fluid. the car clicked and did not start. when the key opened the circuit the battery which was no good and would not take a charge. When we tried to start the car  the battery  spiked and shorted out the ECU. the fact that car drove in means nothing. the battery was bad it shorted out the ECU because one terminal had rotted as per the pictures I sent you showing the excessive amount of acid on the one side of the battery. Nothing was done wrong to the car and the customer was treated in a professional manor.  I did tell him if he did not stop cursing at me I would call the police as he was treated with respect and we had done nothing but try to help him since we came to the shop.   Martin A W[redacted]ps I am still willing to help him. But will not accept his disrespect and lack of truth. I did not cause his problem, I did not treat him in anyway less than professional, I am not responsible in any way for his ECU as it was damaged by the battery .

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/11/11) */
Contact Name and Title: [redacted]
Contact Phone: General Manager t
Contact Email: [redacted]@gmail.com
We have addressed all customer concerns and repaired his vehicle. The customer has picked up his vehicle and we are going...

to write him a check for the additional parts that we had him purchase as a courtesy. We did not charge him for those parts in the first place but we are sorry that this customer has had these issues.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (2000, 7, 2015/11/12) */
(The consumer indicated he/she ACCEPTED the response from the business.)

Initial Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2015/04/17) */
The customer brought us her vehicle on 3/12 @ 8:07 am. Upon completion of the multi point inspection, it was suggested that the customer have a "tune up" done (new spark plugs, spark plug wires, fuel filter and serpentine belt). ...

Customer gave authorization on 3/17 @ 12:10 pm. While replacing the spark plugs, it was noticed that they were very old and excessively worn, and may be the original plugs (with 216,297 miles on them). One of the plugs was seized in, and so brittle that it broke off. The customer was contacted and made aware of best case/ worst case price for repairing this. It was explained, in detail, that this happened because of a lack of proper maintenance (neglect) on the vehicle. The Customer authorized the additional work and cost on 3/18.
In reference to the customer's complaint about the slight upcharge on parts, yes we do. We put a a mild upcharge on the parts, for warranty reasons. This is standard practice in the industry.
We took the time to have the customer talk with 2 of our Representatives, to make certain that the issue with the spark plug breaking was clearly communicated as lack of proper maintenance (neglect) on the consumer end. The customer Authorized all repairs/pricing after stating that they understood.
It should be noted that customer was given $229.21 in additional parts, AT NO CHARGE, for this repair work - for other issues caused by neglect, that were discovered as part of the repair.
Initial Consumer Rebuttal /* (3000, 7, 2015/04/28) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
No, I gave permission to [redacted] on the 12th of March, 2015. When I did not hear from him by the 16th of March, 2015, I called to find out when my car would be done. Tommy answered the phone and informed me that he did not know anything about my car and that [redacted] and his wife had taken a little vacation. He also informed me that the mechanic had a doctor's appointment that morning and had not come in yet. But, that he would find out something and let me know. He called me on Tuesday March 16, 2015 in the afternoon, which is when he told me that he had bad news, that one of the spark plugs had broken off while removing it and that it was going to cost more now to finish the job. He said that the plug was in there really tight and that it broke off. He said it may have been the original plug. He told me that because it had broken off they would have to drill it out and then rethread it to replace the plug and that another one was in there kind of tight also. I asked what would it cost me then and he said it would be 2200.00 or more if they had to send it somewhere to be drilled depending on if they could get it out or not. At that time I told him I could not afford to pay for that and couldn't they put it back together and I could come get it. He said no, they could not put it back together like it was and that I would not be able to drive it. Then I said I cannot afford to pay for it and he said that they had financing at their place of business and I told him my credit was not good and that I would probably not qualify, he then said we could probably work something else out there. So at that point I told him to go ahead and fix it. I felt like that was the only thing I could do. I tried at several different places to get the money, but could not.
About the slight upcharge, it was twice what was quoted on the website of O'Reilly's. To me that is a little bit more than slight. Plus they had to buy the tool to rethread it and I was charged for that.
No one ever took the time to talk to me except when I initiated it and it was never told to me it was because of neglect, what they said again was that they might be the original plugs. Also, those additional parts were given only when they were putting my car back together and he is correct there was no additional charge, I did not know about this until it was done.
Also they had my car from March 12th, 2015 until March 27th, 2015. I had to get rides to work and to school and anywhere else I needed to go.
Final Business Response /* (4000, 15, 2015/08/07) */
signed their title over to us so no contact was made here as we took care of this before you contacted us
Final Consumer Response /* (4200, 17, 2015/08/08) */
(The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.)
This is the only resolution I had to this problem.

Asked to have my transmission rebuilt, new flexplate, new torque converter, clutches bands, etc. When I picked up the car they charged me $3K, which is exhorbitant but I needed the truck for my work so I had no choice at the time. it had a grinding noise when trying to start, like the starter wasnt engaging fully. I drove it like that for two weeks and it didnt go away so I returned and told the manager it was making a noise when it starts. They had it for a day and said it was ready for pick up. when I went to pick it up it was still making the same grinding noise. I told the manager and he said it was a bad starter. I said I had replaced the starter two weeks before having them fix the transmission. He said it was the starter for sure, so I left. that weekend I crawled under my truck to replace the starter and noticed the starter was crooked. Upon further inspection I noticed a 1/8 in carbon fiber plate that fits between the starter and the bell housing was broken on one side. so when the starter is tightened down, it tweaks it to one side. I loosened the starter and put a metal shim in the side and retightened. The starter sound fine now.

This shop knew they had broken the plate and instead of getting a new one just put it back together and then played dumb. I told them at the shop if it wasnt the starter I was going to file a complaint and so here it is.

I will also note the two times I was there other customers were complaining about their cars. That should have been a warning to me.

AAmcos are franchises so other Aamcos might be okay, but these guys are crooks who overcharge and dont own up to their work. Dont go there.

Review: My husband, [redacted] and I are the owners of a 2007 Chevy Tahoe. My husband works for the State of NJ so we used the discount site for state employees to find a repair shop for our vehicle. We were referred to Aamco due to the advertisement stating free diagnostic service. We dropped our vehicle off on 9/26/14 at 9pm and left our keys in the drop box. We spoke with [redacted] earlier that day stating it would be ok to do so. We recevied a phone call from [redacted] the next morning stating he had "break down/take apart" our vehicle in order to find out what the exact problem was because there were numerous sensors going off and could not be certain what the EXACT problem was until that was done. We agreed. He then called us back and stated the following items needed to be repaired 1. Fuel Pump Module; 2. Wheel Speed Sensor; 3. Body Control Module. He gave us the price which was/is $1927 which also includes a $150 discount for using the state program discount and we agreed to have to repairs done which he said he would have completed in 2 days. 2 days we called to check on the vehicle and found out the incorrect fuel pump was ordered (our vehicle is a flex fuel vehicle) which caused a delay. We were given the price for the flex fuel pump but the body shop ordered the incorrect part. We then expected to have our vehicle that friday. [redacted] told us they accidentally sliced our fuel line during the repairs which then caused a gas leak. Additional delay again. Saturday we were told EVERYTHING was repaired and there were no additional issues on our vehicle and it just needed to be reset and will be ready Monday. He said it would only take 45 minutes to do the reset. We call today and were told a NEW sensor has gone off, the evaporator ventalator control solenoid. We feel this error was caused by the repair shop. We were told on Saturday there were NO additional issues and all of a sudden there is a new sensor going off. Issue should have been seen when the car was taken apart.Desired Settlement: The Aamco bodyshop should be responsible for repairing this item, not us. This is an additional amount of money plus labor that was srpung on us the day we are supposed to pick our car up. The car was completely taken apart to figure out what all of the issues were so this should have been seen then. The car has been with Aamco for 10 days for a repair that should have taken 2 days. In addition to the length of time, they caused another repair (slicing the gas line) during our repair. [redacted] states that the sensor going off is not common but happens. I feel they are not being upfront and have caused this additional sensor error and now want us to pay for their mistake. Again, this issue should have been picked up when the car was completely taken apart because they needed to be exact on what was wrong. This would and should have been noticed by trained mechanics. [redacted] said this issue needs to be repaired for NJ state inspection. its their mistake and they need to fix our vehicle.

Business

Response: