AAMCO, South Shore area, MA - a real rebuilt or rip off job ?
My 2002 Ford Econoline E150 Cargo Van has 110k miles on it, it was use for a home pickup and delivery for dry cleaning, nothing heavy duty. Started last year, My transmission shifted a bit late when cold but works ok when it's warm, and I took it to my regular mechanic for other problem and mention the late shift problem, and when I pick up the van, it was shifting fine again, asked the garage owner what he had done, and he told me he had added some transmission fluid and that's all.
Early this year(Winter) the same problem came up and I thought I can fix the problem by adding some transmission oil, but it does not seem to work, that lead me to believe the transmission is bad since the van has 110k miles on it, So I brought the car to the AAMCO shop, right across from my Dry Cleaner, since they are "the transmission specialist", and they say in the web site they have this transcan for free, so I bought my Van to them and have them check out the transmission. After a test drive, the manager said the van, was shifted late in all gears, which is what I told him, and then he proceed to say he need to open the transmission to check out what the problem is and it would cost around $450 check out to find out the problem area, and it would be cost that much whether I have it fix or not, like a fool, I let them go ahead and do the "check" and after the check they said some part of the transmission is mess up and the transmission needed to have be rebuild and that would cost around $1700, but they might need to replace the "torque convertor" that might or might not needed but would be about another $300 to $400 bucks.
I brought the car to the shop on 4/3/2009 Friday, at Noon, and the manager say I can have it back on late Monday and Tuesday the latest.
On Monday, I got a call from him stating that I need the torque converter and other parts and that will be another $600 bucks, I have no choice but have him go ahead with it. Since I need a van to delivery my cleaning back to my customers, I have to borrow my Cleaner's van for the delivery, It just happen to be that my Dry Cleaner is right across the street from that AAMCO shop, and it was a little after 6:00pm, the AAMCO shop had already closed but the van was sitting at the lot on the right side of the shop. I think that's kind of strange.
And then come Tuesday, I had not had any call from the shop about picking up the car, but instead at around 5PM, I got a call from my cleaner's worker saying that she saw them just brought the car in the shop and that the car was sitting at the lot the whole day on Monday(which I had noticed) and all day Tuesday, and that other workers in my dry cleaner also noticed that the car was parked on the shop front lot facing the street on Saturday. That got me suspicious and I call the manager when can I pick up the car and he told me I can get my car back in the morning and they had spend more than 16 hours rebuilding the transmission. Came Wednesday, got a call from him at a little after 10am saying that the car was done. That seem to be really fast for getting a transmission rebuild since they close at 6pm and open at 8am, so they spend 3 hours total in getting the transmission fix it seem ?
The fact that the car sit in the lot for that whole time got me really suspicious. The only problem was late shift when cold, there's no noise or anything when shifting just delay in shifting. But I remember the manager mention 3 times to me that the transmission fluid should be change "EVERY YEAR", but I don't really pay attention to it, but now that I think back, I think what I really needed is just a transmission fluid change, since I had not had a transmission fluid change for the whole 110k miles since I brought the car.
Since I know nothing about transmission. Based on the description does it seem like transmission fluid change was all I need or do I really needed a transmission rebuild job?
I had done some research on the Ford E150 and didn't noticed any issue with the transmission for that car, but ton and ton of complaint on the deceptive practices that AAMCO used in ripping off the general public, I am a small business owner and am really struggling to make end meet at this economy and $2300 is a Hugh amount which I really cannot afford at this time.
If this seems like a rip job what should I do? Any suggestion would be appreciated.
