Complaint Review: AAMCO TRANSMISSION

I thought it was only fair to update the report when I did to give the new owners a chance.  I personally will never deal with AAMCO again, but just didnt want my dealings with the old owners to reflect the new ones. Figured it was only fair.  But from what I have heard from other ex-employees of AAMCO what your saying is pretty much across the whole AAMCO franchise. Same ideas of the company as yours. Sure does concrete in my choice to never use a AAMCO again in my life.

I have worked for aamcos all around the us and it isnt any different in oh canada...sad for the new owners maybe paying up to 8% franchise fees...many others only pay 5%...in the end in order to actually survive in business...these shops have to cheat you in my opinion. i have been a manager for over 20 years all shops and owners are cheaters in my experience...dont want to hear the bs i have seen it all!!!!

First off all my reviews on AAMCO Kitchener were when the old owners were operating the company.  I since put them out of business, won my court case and got my car back.  For everyones information there are new owners that are running AAMCO I want to make it clear that my reviews had nothing at all to do with them.  The new owner is Roan and the new manager is Brian.  The only thing that is the same is the name AAMCO and the location.  Everyone is new, and please dont judge the new owners by my comments and reviews about the old owners.  Thanks

The facts that the apparent other owner has stated are true to the extent inregards to the rental car, as the the rental was paid by the $500 which was part of the agreement. I did obtain my car back because aamco parked it out side which give me full right to retake it. They called the police on me because I reclaimed my car and the police told them that they would have to go through small claims court to sue me and that they were not allowed to retake my car as per the Repair storage leins act. Instead aamco in the dead of night and after being told by the courts the timeframe for the process to sue me, they went and claimed to a local third paryy bailiff who was not under court jurisiction that i had stolen my car from them, and convinced the bailiff to come and seize the car again.

aamco has been been very dishonest, as well as sneaky with their conduct and I will also be posting the conversations with the bailiff as well as some of the people from aamco that i had. Under the freedom of information and privicy act I have full right as a part to the calls to record them as well as do what I wish with them. You will be able to view the paper work as well as the hear to phone calls live at www.bluwest.com/aamco.

Thanks

Hi, I am one of the owners of AAMCO Kitchener.

My wife and I are the new owners of AAMCO Kitchener.

I have taken this long to respond because not all the facts were present in the initial report. It is now time to clarify with just the facts, no opinions or exaggeration of the situation. If other consumers are to formulate an opinion of AAMCO they must have all the information.

Firstly it is unfortunate that this situation had come to this. We have a strict policy with regards to when we can and cannot perform work on a customer's vehicle. Contrary to this current report, this customer did in fact sign for work on (3) seperate occasions giving us authorization for the following:

- Perform the external diagnostic (which is by the way a free service)
- Pull the transmission to perform an internal diagnostic (which is a minimal fee usually around $300-400)
- Perform the necessary work to rebuild the transmission.

None of these could have been completed without prior authorization period. Plain and simple. We do not tolerate ambiguity when it comes to customer authorization.

The customer did put a $500.00 deposit down as requested.

We did arrange for a rental car for the customer on our credit card because he was unable to at the time.

We trusted the customer based on his word that he was capable of securing the financing for the work that he authorized. It was only after we found out that he was unable to secure the financing as promised and that after one week he had no intention on paying for his rental vehicle that we had no choice but to revoke the rental vehicle. The customer was brought the rental car agency and when the customer explained that they would go to the bank to get money for the rental car agency, he just simply did not return.

The rental car bill was $500.00.

It was at this point that regardless of the customer's promises and authorization to us he had no intention of paying for the repairs.

The only recourse at this time is to hold the vehicle as collateral and give the customer enough time to perform his or her due diligence.

This is not a scam, it is the only legal resource available to us to secure our interest in this job.

I truly believe that we went above and beyond for this customer and only when faced with the reality that he could not secure the financing for authorized work did he escalate this situation to this level.

At this time the customer is still given time to perform his due diligence and we hope that he will.

Regards,

THE SO CALLED CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER CALLED THE RENTAL CAR AGENCY TO COME GET THE CAR KNOWING THAT I HAD GIVEN HIM $500 FOR THE RENTAL CAR AND KNOWING THAT I DIDN'T HAVE ANY MORE CASH THAT DAY BECAUSE I TOLD HIM. HE WANTED ALL THE MONEY UP FRONT FOR THE REPAIRS. WHICH WERE NEVER AUTH TO BE DONE IN THE FIRST PLACE, I TOLD HIM NO I WAS NOT PAYING FOR SOMETHING I NEVER NEEDED TO HAVE DONE, BUT I GUESS HE NEVER INFORMED YOU, OR YOU'RE BOTH IN ON THIS SCAM THAT YOU HAVE BEEN AND I FIGURED IF YOU GUYS WANT TO DO THAT AND STEAL MY MONEY THAT WAS TO GO TO THE OWNER FOR THE CAR RENTAL AND USE IT FOR YOUR OWN WANTS I WAS NOT GOING TO GET SCREWED AGAIN. YOU THOUGHT YOU WOULD SCORE $500 OUTTA DOING SCAM WORK...GUESS NOT. IN REGARDS TO MY "GETTING OFF MY A$$" OH AND THANKS FOR CORRECTING ME UP ABOVE AND PROVING MY POINT ABOUT YOU, YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER, AS WELL AS AAMCO TRANSMISSION KITCHENER, I WILL BE DOING EVERYTHING IN MY POWER TO MAKE SURE "EVERYONE" IN THE TRI-CITY AREA KNOWS ABOUT YOUR COMPANY AND HOW BIG A RIP OFF THEY ARE. ALSO LEGAL WISE ONCE THE CAR IS EITHER PICKED UP BY ROYAL BANK, OR LEAVES MY HANDS "LEGALLY" NOT VIA THE WAY YOU PEOPLE HAVE DONE, I WILL BE APPROACHING YOU AND YOUR CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER PERSONALLY, AS WELL AS AAMCO TRANSMISSION OF KITCHENER WITH EVERY LEGAL RESOURCE AT MY DISPOSAL. AS WELL AS THIS WEBSITE WILL BE ADDED TO THE LIST OF DOCUMENTS CURRENTLY IN EVIDENCE SO KEEP ON AS YOU SAY IT "DRIBBLING AT THE MOUTH" CAUSE IT IS ALL BEING INCLUDED. IN THE END ONCE ALL THE LEGAL PROCEEDINGS ARE DONE, I AM SURE YOU WILL HAVE MORE THEN ENOUGH FREE TIME TO REPLY TO COMMENTS ON THIS WEBSITE.

I believe I called you a fkin a#&hole thank you very much. You have a habit of twisting what ever any one says to suit what ever you want it to mean. As for not having any response to your "evidence" , you took off on the rental car place saying you were going to the bank machine and never coming back. I have better things to do on my weekends (I do have a family) than worry about your mindless dribble. If you are gonna sue get off your a*s and do it .....OH YEAH you need money to do that and you cant even afford to fix your car let alone launch a law suit.
BYE

I believe I called you a fkin a#&hole thank you very much. You have a habit of twisting what ever any one says to suit what ever you want it to mean. As for not having any response to your "evidence" , you took off on the rental car place saying you were going to the bank machine and never coming back. I have better things to do on my weekends (I do have a family) than worry about your mindless dribble. If you are gonna sue get off your a*s and do it .....OH YEAH you need money to do that and you cant even afford to fix your car let alone launch a law suit.
BYE

I see that now that you know that I have the evidence proving my claims you are no longer standing up for AAMCO Transmissions of Kitchener of which you are an employee and since you are the guy as you admit did the work on my car, under the false understanding that you had my permission to do so. It is aweful that the other day I had the waterloo regional police at my door because I am apparently harassing you guys by posting my experences to let customers beware of the practices of AAMCO Transmissions Kitchener and to not take their car there for ANY reason. Also there is another claim in small claims court right now from the past month or so and this all goes to show that AAMCO Transmission is not a place to do business with at all. There are lots of decent Transmission places in Kitchener/Waterloo including Pioneer Transmissions right across the road from you, as well as Mr. Transmission.

The lawsuits are a fact of life when you try to screw over a customer. I am not sure where throwing my stuff on the ground just to get me out of the bay area when you opened the trunk only after having the waterloo regional police tell you that you have no right to hold my stuff and you also calling me an a*****e, and richard yelling to everyone that I am a public annoyance, I didnt know that was part of your customer service experence.
with the key issue, I said I never use the key in the trunk because I have a inside pop button, but the key always did work. The only agreement was for an external diagnosis at a charge of n/c which means no charge. The form that I signed was for the $500 that was paid for the car rental since your owner put that on her credit card. The mess of chicken scratch that richard did is part of many of the past bbb reports and is enables his ability to confuse and screw customers. I have never seen such unprofessional business pratices in my life. I also never called 3 times a day every day, I did call every once in awhile because I was angry at the lies and deception that you and richard have done to many customers. When I did come into the shop I was polite and yes I told Richard that I was launching a lawsuit, which I am still going to do once the car is out. Also AAMCO Transmission in kitchener is not returning the Royal Bank of Canada's phone calls about the car I am interested why not, since they wanna pay it and then take you to court for the money. Guess Royal Bank has a few more lawyers then richard claims that AAMCO has. Not to mention every call to aamco in kitchener has been recorded and I am more then willing to post them on the internet so the truth be heard and insults that the owner said to me calling me full of BullSh*t and that even if there was a mixup in the shop that I still have to pay the bill. Not to mention I am sure you knew when richard went into the back room what he was doing when he was calling the rental car company, and I know this because when I asked who that was you said that it was a customer coming into pay for a car, but you knew who it was. Richard with you assistance made my preg girlfriend and myself walk in the cold. You can be assured that once my 2002 Impala is out of your bay that I will be proceeding with legal action even if the bank does it. I will also post all the paper work as well for the people of this forum to read and make notes. I am on ODSP nd for richard, you and your company to take advantage of someone like myself is disgraceful.

The lawsuits are a fact of life when you try to screw over a customer. I am not sure where throwing my stuff on the ground just to get me out of the bay area when you opened the trunk only after having the waterloo regional police tell you that you have no right to hold my stuff and you also calling me an a*****e, and richard yelling to everyone that I am a public annoyance, I didnt know that was part of your customer service experence.
with the key issue, I said I never use the key in the trunk because I have a inside pop button, but the key always did work. The only agreement was for an external diagnosis at a charge of n/c which means no charge. The form that I signed was for the $500 that was paid for the car rental since your owner put that on her credit card. The mess of chicken scratch that richard did is part of many of the past bbb reports and is enables his ability to confuse and screw customers. I have never seen such unprofessional business pratices in my life. I also never called 3 times a day every day, I did call every once in awhile because I was angry at the lies and deception that you and richard have done to many customers. When I did come into the shop I was polite and yes I told Richard that I was launching a lawsuit, which I am still going to do once the car is out. Also AAMCO Transmission in kitchener is not returning the Royal Bank of Canada's phone calls about the car I am interested why not, since they wanna pay it and then take you to court for the money. Guess Royal Bank has a few more lawyers then richard claims that AAMCO has. Not to mention every call to aamco in kitchener has been recorded and I am more then willing to post them on the internet so the truth be heard and insults that the owner said to me calling me full of BullSh*t and that even if there was a mixup in the shop that I still have to pay the bill. Not to mention I am sure you knew when richard went into the back room what he was doing when he was calling the rental car company, and I know this because when I asked who that was you said that it was a customer coming into pay for a car, but you knew who it was. Richard with you assistance made my preg girlfriend and myself walk in the cold. You can be assured that once my 2002 Impala is out of your bay that I will be proceeding with legal action even if the bank does it. I will also post all the paper work as well for the people of this forum to read and make notes. I am on ODSP nd for richard, you and your company to take advantage of someone like myself is disgraceful.

The lawsuits are a fact of life when you try to screw over a customer. I am not sure where throwing my stuff on the ground just to get me out of the bay area when you opened the trunk only after having the waterloo regional police tell you that you have no right to hold my stuff and you also calling me an a*****e, and richard yelling to everyone that I am a public annoyance, I didnt know that was part of your customer service experence.
with the key issue, I said I never use the key in the trunk because I have a inside pop button, but the key always did work. The only agreement was for an external diagnosis at a charge of n/c which means no charge. The form that I signed was for the $500 that was paid for the car rental since your owner put that on her credit card. The mess of chicken scratch that richard did is part of many of the past bbb reports and is enables his ability to confuse and screw customers. I have never seen such unprofessional business pratices in my life. I also never called 3 times a day every day, I did call every once in awhile because I was angry at the lies and deception that you and richard have done to many customers. When I did come into the shop I was polite and yes I told Richard that I was launching a lawsuit, which I am still going to do once the car is out. Also AAMCO Transmission in kitchener is not returning the Royal Bank of Canada's phone calls about the car I am interested why not, since they wanna pay it and then take you to court for the money. Guess Royal Bank has a few more lawyers then richard claims that AAMCO has. Not to mention every call to aamco in kitchener has been recorded and I am more then willing to post them on the internet so the truth be heard and insults that the owner said to me calling me full of BullSh*t and that even if there was a mixup in the shop that I still have to pay the bill. Not to mention I am sure you knew when richard went into the back room what he was doing when he was calling the rental car company, and I know this because when I asked who that was you said that it was a customer coming into pay for a car, but you knew who it was. Richard with you assistance made my preg girlfriend and myself walk in the cold. You can be assured that once my 2002 Impala is out of your bay that I will be proceeding with legal action even if the bank does it. I will also post all the paper work as well for the people of this forum to read and make notes. I am on ODSP nd for richard, you and your company to take advantage of someone like myself is disgraceful.

The lawsuits are a fact of life when you try to screw over a customer. I am not sure where throwing my stuff on the ground just to get me out of the bay area when you opened the trunk only after having the waterloo regional police tell you that you have no right to hold my stuff and you also calling me an a*****e, and richard yelling to everyone that I am a public annoyance, I didnt know that was part of your customer service experence.
with the key issue, I said I never use the key in the trunk because I have a inside pop button, but the key always did work. The only agreement was for an external diagnosis at a charge of n/c which means no charge. The form that I signed was for the $500 that was paid for the car rental since your owner put that on her credit card. The mess of chicken scratch that richard did is part of many of the past bbb reports and is enables his ability to confuse and screw customers. I have never seen such unprofessional business pratices in my life. I also never called 3 times a day every day, I did call every once in awhile because I was angry at the lies and deception that you and richard have done to many customers. When I did come into the shop I was polite and yes I told Richard that I was launching a lawsuit, which I am still going to do once the car is out. Also AAMCO Transmission in kitchener is not returning the Royal Bank of Canada's phone calls about the car I am interested why not, since they wanna pay it and then take you to court for the money. Guess Royal Bank has a few more lawyers then richard claims that AAMCO has. Not to mention every call to aamco in kitchener has been recorded and I am more then willing to post them on the internet so the truth be heard and insults that the owner said to me calling me full of BullSh*t and that even if there was a mixup in the shop that I still have to pay the bill. Not to mention I am sure you knew when richard went into the back room what he was doing when he was calling the rental car company, and I know this because when I asked who that was you said that it was a customer coming into pay for a car, but you knew who it was. Richard with you assistance made my preg girlfriend and myself walk in the cold. You can be assured that once my 2002 Impala is out of your bay that I will be proceeding with legal action even if the bank does it. I will also post all the paper work as well for the people of this forum to read and make notes. I am on ODSP nd for richard, you and your company to take advantage of someone like myself is disgraceful.

I am actually the poor guy that had to work on this vehicle. The car was brought in and customer report form reads as what the customer told the center manager. He was told that he has a catalyic converter problem, maybe O2 sensors, engine mounts definately, check tranny. Speedo out a little bit, wheel bearings, the gas milage is awful, put foot down hesitating, and klunks or bangs in to reverse. He thinks tranny, turn engine on feels like misfire, after put gas pedal down it gets better. Car was stolen in june, insurance paid for a bunch of repairs. Check engine lite on and off intermittantly.

The transmission was found to have problems and the recomendation was made to remove and inspect trans, upon getting approval and a signature on the forms (he knew the trans was coming out), we pulled trans and inspected and found it needed all clutches all bands(all were burnt) a 4th clutch hub (stripped), 2 drive chains (stretched and rubbing on center support)a channel plate sleeve(was grooved out) and some bushings, some valve body updates and electronic parts and a torque converter. Upon inspecting the vehicle after trans was removed it was found to need all mounts under the hood, both front wheel bearings control arm bushings, both inner cv boots were throwing grease everywhere and the transmission cooler is restricted. The customer came in and I showed him his parts.
I was shown the signed approval for the repair and seen you left a $500.00 deposit towards the repair and we went ahead with the work.

As for the trunk thing I tried to open the trunk with the key right in front of you and when it didn't work, you said " I have never used the key since the day I bought the car I always used the button on the dash". We told him to come back in a couple of hours to give us time to temporarily put trans in to get the trunk to open. Upon returning to the center your trunk was open and you started to remove your equipment from the trunk, however the female that accompanied you proceeded to snap the dash cover off and bent the ignition key and popped the cover off the ignition while trying to remove the radio and the police scanner. Which the police advised is fastened to the car so it is considered part of the car and can not be removed. I then asked you if there is anything else you needed out of the car and you said " NO ".

With regards to the "night drive-by" I didnt know that night was 3:30 in the afternoon and entailed you standing in our office and on the front door step threatening to launch a class action lawsuit and to bring the sheriff to seize every employees vehicle and was going to start with Ricks vehicle cause he was a jerk to you. Let us not forget the 3+ phone calls a day. OH YEAH the car is empty of the tools and ALL equipment that you said you were going to sell in order to help pay the bill.

As for the Better Business Bureau complaints, they were about the previous owner and do not reflect the business ethics of the current owners. I personally enjoy coming to work again.

Yes I am aware of the trunk not being able to be open by the trunk pop button inside the car, but that does not mean that my key wouldnt work like it always used to. I had over $800 woth of equipment that I used when I used to work in the trunk and they knew that. Now just the other day they sent the cops to MY door because I am apparently bugging them when I drive by at night to see if my car is still there. Their is still a lien on my car from the Royal Bank, and the bank is willing to pay them to get the car back but they wont even return the banks phone calls because as soon as the bank get the car I am taking them to court and they know this, and since the car has been in there since Nov 1 they are waiting the 60 days until they can sell it and keep everything. They claim to be a "Complete car specialist" thats why I took it there for a estimate on the cat repair. AAMCO Transmission in Kitchener is the biggest fraud ever and a complete rip off. Richard Groh is the sales manager and has a ton of bbb complaints about him. He also has no respect for the clients that he is able to scam into the store. Even when I was in there arguing about my car people were coming in upset about the same thing I was. I have looked at other AAMCO Transmissions in the area and they have no reports on them, so this complaint is only directed at AAMCO Transmissions of Kitchener/Waterloo.

First I dont understand why you would go to a transmission shop for a catalyc converter but whatever that was your decision.
The GM cars with the electronic trunk release buttons will not open the trunk if there is no neutral safety switch (which is part of the Transmission). If the transmission is out of the car. On this particular vehicle the neutral safety switch is located INSIDE of the transmission. If the transmission is not bolted in the car (due to needing to connect battery grounds) and the large plug on top of the transmission is not plugged in (which is the electronics) you will not be able to open the trunk. I know this because I am a licensed transmission tech working on the transmission end of things since 1995.