Walker Bros. Buick - Chevrolet

10/16/2019
I am Craig W and this is our response to your case # *** for ***
A little over 3 years ago *** aunt, *** called about her 7 year old Impala needing its transmission looked at. She has been a customer of ours for over 25 years and was hoping we could get GM to help as the car had really low miles for the year. We went to bat for her after looking at the transmission to see what it needed, and after consultation with our GM service representative determined it best to get a remanufactured transmission with a 36 mo. or 100,000 mile warranty versus rebuilding hers. This way all the parts are new except for the case. Gm had her pay $1200 and they paid the remainder of the $3200 cost. Since then, she gave or sold the car to her niece, ***
Now, slightly more than three years later the transmission failed again. We were made aware of this when *** called me asking if we could once again see if we could get GM’s help. I said we would try, but I wasn’t sure how much we could get since the vehicle is now 10 years old and the warranty that just expired was a parts warranty that typically are iron clad on time and miles. Based on this she had her niece get the vehicle up to us.
Once it was here we went to our Gm representative again, asking for help since it was just past the 3 year mark and still had low miles. They said that if we did another remanufactured transmission (now $3400) they wanted the customer to pay $2200 and they would pay the rest, GM’s reasoning was the customer now has a 10 year old car and the sum of the two repairs would be GM had paid half and the customer had paid half, and the customer would again have 3 more years of warranty.
We presented this offer, which still stands, to customer, but they declined because they didn’t have the money. The customer then asked if GM would participate in a rebuild of the transmission. To be able to do this required us to remove the transmission and tear it apart to see what was needed so we could describe the repair to GM. *** and *** approved the teardown to see how much it would cost to rebuild the transmission and see the cause of the failure. We found a band had failed and GM declined to participate in the rebuild. Because GM would not participate we (W*** Bros) offered them a customer appreciation discount of $500 for the repair. To know the exact dollar of the repair would require total disassembly. We told them the base price if nothing more than the band was needed would be $1700 and could go as high as $2200. Thus after the $500 help we offered their cost would be between $1200 and $1700.
At this point a step mom and boyfriend got involved. The step mom said they didn’t want to spend any more money on this car and maybe would sell it. She asked if we wanted to buy it in it’s present torn down state for $500. The used car manager looked at it and did not want it, mechanics didn’t want it so Jim (service manager) said he would take it if that is really what they wanted to do.
We all think they should not sell it in it’s present state, but instead repair it and then sell it. We have advised them of this. I personally have told *** and the boyfriend this.
If they do insist on having us put it back together un-repaired so they can take it, we will need $700 for the labor to tear down, diagnose and reassemble the transmission. We believe this would be an un-wise choice and a waste of money. Both *** and *** acted the whole time like they were going to fix the car and just wanted the most help from GM they could get.
The repair is almost half done, why pay to close it up unrepaired. Get it fixed and then sell it.
I have been here 44 years and the family dealership for 103. We certainly are not here to hurt anyone and we try our best to find a workable solution to fix problems. If you need any more information don’t hesitate to call me.
Sincerely,
Criag W
Tell us why here...

Several points in response.

1. *** says she “never gave any permission for my vehicle to be worked on”. Question, why would she pull her vehicle out of a shop in Pittsburgh and have it towed to our shop if she didn’t want us to work on it? It’s 120 miles!

2. *** says “why would I have the same company repair the transmission if the first time it was not repaired properly?” Technically we did not repair the original transmission, we replaced it with a General Motors remanufactured transmission, 3 years ago. And again she had it towed 120 miles for us to work on it.

3. We contacted GM for her and appealed for help on this. They offered help toward another remanufactured transmission even though it was past the 3yr/36000 mile part warranty, but not to the level she could afford.

4. We discussed with her that it could be less expensive to rebuild it instead of replacing it with another remanufactured transmission. She wanted to know if GM would participate with the rebuild. At this point if she didn’t want us to work on it or want anything to do with us, why didn’t she say I’m going to tow it out of there don’t touch it? To determine if GM would help we had to do a partial teardown to find the cause of the failure. When we found the cause GM said they would not participate in the rebuild, but the offer to participate in the remanufactured transmission still stands.

5. Our discussions with her were never about should I fix it or shouldn’t I fix it, it was always about the least expensive way to fix it.

6. Everything we have done to date has been to try and help *** and yet she acts like we are trying to railroad her.

We will make two final offers to resolve this:

1. We will put it back together as-is for $500 plus tax and she can have it towed out of here. It is our opinion this would be a waste of money.

2. We will fix it for $1400 plus tax.

Sincerely,

Craig W