Complaint Review: Cottman Transmission

I followed a friend of mine to Cottman Transmissions in South Arlington on August 6, 2004, to drop off his car. His clutch needed to be replaced. A day later HE PAID FOR and picked up the vehicle.

Three weeks later the car was having problems. Getting it to go into gear was nearly impossible. He was in Lewisville and the car was very difficult to drive but he was able to get it to their location. He was told that they would not work on his car because the location he received his original repair was less than 50 miles away (33 miles). (Cottman Policy)

The vehicle was towed to the South Arlington location for $140.00, which was PAID for by the owner of the car. Cottman Arlington told him that they would pay for 1/2 of the tow. (A warranty item should have been the whole tow) On Sept 1, 2004 he picked up the car and was told that they were not going to pay any of the tow. He was also told that his warranty is no longer any good but they will replace the clutch cable clip for him. The clip fell off. It seems that the owner has since been removed from duty for skimming money off the repairs. Hmmm....a pattern here??

Well long story short...my friend is out $140.00 for a tow that he should not have had to pay for because the repair should have been done right in the first place. 3 weeks???? Is that how long a repair from Cottman is good for???? Now that he has no warranty, what is he going to do when something else falls off?

If the vehicle has a warranty through Cottman why is the warranty void everytime a new franchisee takes over? How can they promote any type of warranty??? Is that not false advertising? I know there are two sides to every story, but how simple is...3 weeks into a clutch repair the clutch fails and car has to be towed and company that did the repairs refuses to pay for the tow?...How much more cut and dry can that be??? Just because they cannot keep one of their locations legitimate should not be the customer's problem or concern.

Cottman's name is on the sign, so that should make them as a company responsible for the business's respectability. I work in the automotive business and have for the past 15 years and no one I am aquatinted with or become aquatinted with will ever receive repairs from Cottman, I will see to that.

I know that every dealership or repair-shop I have worked for or been affiliated with has paid for the vehicle to be transported to the repair facility for warranty repairs. This was clearly a warrantable repair.

as an ex cottman employee (not that one) many times, when a new manager comes in the business liscense has changed hands, the "corporation name changes" not the cottman name, look at your receipt see if it says ie,, velvet touch transmissions inc dba cottman transmissions, each center is operated by a inc or llc or sole prop. what liscense is the current manager operating under if in fact he has one???

if it is diffrent than the one the previous manager was operating under, he is not entitled to collect your monies any more than he is obligated to pay the past managments debts. anotherwords if the previous inc/LLc/sp went under so did your debt because you made it with that business, not the new one if that is the case. on all cottman tickets it should list the inc dba as cottman trans...

why was this new manager so bent on collecting your 400 or so bucks, most likley if it was the same corp he would not get your commission as he did not sell the job, then again maybe the boss fired the generous guy and is on the new mans butt to get cash flow, then again the new manager might be the owner of the new company (corporation) and will pocket all of the 400 or so bucks. good luck

as an ex cottman employee (not that one) many times, when a new manager comes in the business liscense has changed hands, the "corporation name changes" not the cottman name, look at your receipt see if it says ie,, velvet touch transmissions inc dba cottman transmissions, each center is operated by a inc or llc or sole prop. what liscense is the current manager operating under if in fact he has one???

if it is diffrent than the one the previous manager was operating under, he is not entitled to collect your monies any more than he is obligated to pay the past managments debts. anotherwords if the previous inc/LLc/sp went under so did your debt because you made it with that business, not the new one if that is the case. on all cottman tickets it should list the inc dba as cottman trans...

why was this new manager so bent on collecting your 400 or so bucks, most likley if it was the same corp he would not get your commission as he did not sell the job, then again maybe the boss fired the generous guy and is on the new mans butt to get cash flow, then again the new manager might be the owner of the new company (corporation) and will pocket all of the 400 or so bucks. good luck

as an ex cottman employee (not that one) many times, when a new manager comes in the business liscense has changed hands, the "corporation name changes" not the cottman name, look at your receipt see if it says ie,, velvet touch transmissions inc dba cottman transmissions, each center is operated by a inc or llc or sole prop. what liscense is the current manager operating under if in fact he has one???

if it is diffrent than the one the previous manager was operating under, he is not entitled to collect your monies any more than he is obligated to pay the past managments debts. anotherwords if the previous inc/LLc/sp went under so did your debt because you made it with that business, not the new one if that is the case. on all cottman tickets it should list the inc dba as cottman trans...

why was this new manager so bent on collecting your 400 or so bucks, most likley if it was the same corp he would not get your commission as he did not sell the job, then again maybe the boss fired the generous guy and is on the new mans butt to get cash flow, then again the new manager might be the owner of the new company (corporation) and will pocket all of the 400 or so bucks. good luck

as an ex cottman employee (not that one) many times, when a new manager comes in the business liscense has changed hands, the "corporation name changes" not the cottman name, look at your receipt see if it says ie,, velvet touch transmissions inc dba cottman transmissions, each center is operated by a inc or llc or sole prop. what liscense is the current manager operating under if in fact he has one???

if it is diffrent than the one the previous manager was operating under, he is not entitled to collect your monies any more than he is obligated to pay the past managments debts. anotherwords if the previous inc/LLc/sp went under so did your debt because you made it with that business, not the new one if that is the case. on all cottman tickets it should list the inc dba as cottman trans...

why was this new manager so bent on collecting your 400 or so bucks, most likley if it was the same corp he would not get your commission as he did not sell the job, then again maybe the boss fired the generous guy and is on the new mans butt to get cash flow, then again the new manager might be the owner of the new company (corporation) and will pocket all of the 400 or so bucks. good luck

HERES what i have to say~~~If the shop iz wrong~~let the shop bear the costs of the mistakes if the customer is the problem ~~let them straiten it out~~~~~whatever the two of them agreed to in the begining "stick" to it~~~~~If it was a manipulated agreement ~~thats not fair who ever got the short end of the deal~~~~Whatever is right~~is right~~~thats what i have to say~~~THE TRANZMN

what can i say, this sight really does work.
the real truth does come out.
thank you. chris

what does tranzman and charles and all the rest of the nay sayers have to say now?

Acesa, I have been doing business with Chris and his shop for a year now. I have had 3 cars in there and he has done a fabulous job on all of them.

If you would have gone a little further north on Cooper nobody would have even considered helping you out in the first place. Cash or nothing!

You never answered up to why you would take the call or why you wouldnt return it. If you had Chris would have cared and would have worked with you. He doesnt want your car, he wants to be paid for the work he did on your car. If you had paid him like you were supposed to you could have driven it right in there and told him about your current problem and he would have fixed, I guarantee it.

You ought to be ashamed for trying to throw him under the bus after he set up a payment plan and you ignored him. next time someone needs help I hope he doesnt say no based on what he has gone through with you. I'm sure he wont.

I am a customer for life with these guys. I have never met a more knowledgable group of guys in my life.

hey guys listen, the customer is always right.
to date this year ive had 472 customers no customer complaints at all!
but i have to take greive from some onoe
who is lying and didnt pay there bill.
then call me wrong ok im wrong.
mr bowens im sorry i tried to coleect money from you, im sorry you couldnt pay your bill.
if you would have called i would have been
more than willing to remedy your situation i might have even told you not to worry about
paying the balance at all. see im the kind of guy if you communicate with me i care.if you are not telling the truth,hiding from your responsibilities i have no compassion at all
for this behavior. i work for cottman transmission my last name is not cottman
i treat my customers with respect,and dignity
i question that this customer has a problem with his transmission and invite him to take it to any cottman transmission in the united states
and if he is still under warranty i will adress his problem at once. i suspect that this tranmission problem is not true. and its a shame you guys think that every one affiliated with a
cottman center is out to rip some one off
perhaps your trying to right the wrongs you performed along time ago when you actually had a
job with cottman or some other transmission shop.
\but not every one conducts business that way.
i take care of my customers
none of you especially the guy whodidnt pay his bill are considered customers. if you have customers that dont pay its called charity
we do a service charge a fair price and stand behind our work fore our CUSTOMERS

hey guys listen, the customer is always right.
to date this year ive had 472 customers no customer complaints at all!
but i have to take greive from some onoe
who is lying and didnt pay there bill.
then call me wrong ok im wrong.
mr bowens im sorry i tried to coleect money from you, im sorry you couldnt pay your bill.
if you would have called i would have been
more than willing to remedy your situation i might have even told you not to worry about
paying the balance at all. see im the kind of guy if you communicate with me i care.if you are not telling the truth,hiding from your responsibilities i have no compassion at all
for this behavior. i work for cottman transmission my last name is not cottman
i treat my customers with respect,and dignity
i question that this customer has a problem with his transmission and invite him to take it to any cottman transmission in the united states
and if he is still under warranty i will adress his problem at once. i suspect that this tranmission problem is not true. and its a shame you guys think that every one affiliated with a
cottman center is out to rip some one off
perhaps your trying to right the wrongs you performed along time ago when you actually had a
job with cottman or some other transmission shop.
\but not every one conducts business that way.
i take care of my customers
none of you especially the guy whodidnt pay his bill are considered customers. if you have customers that dont pay its called charity
we do a service charge a fair price and stand behind our work fore our CUSTOMERS

hey guys listen, the customer is always right.
to date this year ive had 472 customers no customer complaints at all!
but i have to take greive from some onoe
who is lying and didnt pay there bill.
then call me wrong ok im wrong.
mr bowens im sorry i tried to coleect money from you, im sorry you couldnt pay your bill.
if you would have called i would have been
more than willing to remedy your situation i might have even told you not to worry about
paying the balance at all. see im the kind of guy if you communicate with me i care.if you are not telling the truth,hiding from your responsibilities i have no compassion at all
for this behavior. i work for cottman transmission my last name is not cottman
i treat my customers with respect,and dignity
i question that this customer has a problem with his transmission and invite him to take it to any cottman transmission in the united states
and if he is still under warranty i will adress his problem at once. i suspect that this tranmission problem is not true. and its a shame you guys think that every one affiliated with a
cottman center is out to rip some one off
perhaps your trying to right the wrongs you performed along time ago when you actually had a
job with cottman or some other transmission shop.
\but not every one conducts business that way.
i take care of my customers
none of you especially the guy whodidnt pay his bill are considered customers. if you have customers that dont pay its called charity
we do a service charge a fair price and stand behind our work fore our CUSTOMERS

hey guys listen, the customer is always right.
to date this year ive had 472 customers no customer complaints at all!
but i have to take greive from some onoe
who is lying and didnt pay there bill.
then call me wrong ok im wrong.
mr bowens im sorry i tried to coleect money from you, im sorry you couldnt pay your bill.
if you would have called i would have been
more than willing to remedy your situation i might have even told you not to worry about
paying the balance at all. see im the kind of guy if you communicate with me i care.if you are not telling the truth,hiding from your responsibilities i have no compassion at all
for this behavior. i work for cottman transmission my last name is not cottman
i treat my customers with respect,and dignity
i question that this customer has a problem with his transmission and invite him to take it to any cottman transmission in the united states
and if he is still under warranty i will adress his problem at once. i suspect that this tranmission problem is not true. and its a shame you guys think that every one affiliated with a
cottman center is out to rip some one off
perhaps your trying to right the wrongs you performed along time ago when you actually had a
job with cottman or some other transmission shop.
\but not every one conducts business that way.
i take care of my customers
none of you especially the guy whodidnt pay his bill are considered customers. if you have customers that dont pay its called charity
we do a service charge a fair price and stand behind our work fore our CUSTOMERS

Dear Chris,

I love how you say that we manipulated the system to work in our favor. I guess you are not getting it, we had to pay you the 485.00, plus pay for the lawyer's fees, just to have justice in this situation. We didn't get away with much, but our pride. Knowing that we didn't let your sorry company get to us. I am sure you do this to a lot of people, but no one thinks they have the right to fight back. But I guess we proved your company wrong. I think you better be lucky that we didn't take you to court for lawyer's fees. It could have been done easily. Please don't let me bring up all the other dirty things you people did to the contract for the work on the trans am. I am sure there is some law that you broke there. Like I said, I hope you are feeling lucky that we didn't take anymore legal action, they might have had to fire you to pay for the shitty customer service you caused them. You know I hope you feel blessed that you even have a job, because if you remeber correctly I did not. You could have been more of a man, and have some heart and realize people aren't millionaires or they wouldn't have had to come to your shop anyways.

Based on my own recent experience, that of a friend a few years back, another fellow victim found in the active court cases here and the reports I have seen on this site, I can draw only one conclusion. I believe the whole enterprise is based on the P. T. Barnum business ethic, e.g. "A sucker is born every minute". They don't need, or care about, repeat business. There are plenty of struggling young families with a beat-up car ready to be caught up in the trap of payments, empty promises, and severe economic privation. The same goes for the franchisors falling for the corporate pitch. The 60 employees up in Pennsylvania just sit in their air conditiond offices, smile, and watch the money roll in year after year. The business name is set up as a "limited liability corp" (LLC) just so they can keep doing this for 40 years so far. Maybe the Internet will topple these kinds of operations.

Take a look at their franchise info:
from http://www.franchiselife.com/cottman.htm

Cottman Transmission Systems

Tagline:
Mailing Address: 240 New York Drive, Fort Washington, PA 19034

Franchise Overview: Cottman Transmissions, an automotive service franchise with centers nationwide, enjoys a forty-year reputation of treating customers with fairness, integrity and honesty. A market leader with opportunities for solid growth, this fast-moving company offers; intensive training, outstanding advertising and on-site support that is virtually unparalleled in the industry. With our comprehensive training and on-going support systems, no automotive background is needed.

Year Established: 1962
First Franchise Unit: 1964 Franchisee Units: 325 Company Owned Units: 5
Total Number Of Units: 330 Geographic Distribution: 325 US, 4 Canada, 1 Intl.
Operate With UFOC: Y Projected Units/Distribution Over Next 12 Months: 50 Worldwide
Cash Investment: $50k Total Investment: $150k-$175k Minimum Net Worth: $150k
Average Franchise Fee: $27k Royalty: 7.5% Advertising: $675/Week Other Fees:
Site Selection Assistance: Y Lease Negotiation Assistance: Y Co-Op Advertising: N Size Of Corporate Staff: 60
Training Program: 3 weeks at corporate HQ, 1 week on-site
On-Going Support:
Financing Programs Available:
REQUEST MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS FRANCHISE OPPORTUNITY - PLEASE ANSWER ALL QUESTIONS

TO THE PUBLIC;~~~ The attitude displayed by the shop is common. As Norman said,a customer is always part of a businesses success.Just some successes are bettter than others but,they "all" count.This operator probably does not have the staff available to complete the repair successfully. We only hear about this one here. HOW MANY are probably out there with the same feelings??? As Norman said: corporate is not really interested after they have your money ~~~the shop is the one who should be interested. This in turn would build good will in 40yrs+ COTTMAN still hasn't got this idea working for them.THATS WHY I'M HERE AND NORMAN IS HERE.I'm sure Norman has heard all the stories an dealt with the other owners who don't have his mindset.How can this change?? With persons voicing their opinions and sharing their experiences for the public to see.MAYBE the corporate office will get their partners to follow suit~~~~~~~~~~THE TRANZMN

TO THE PUBLIC;~~~ The attitude displayed by the shop is common. As Norman said,a customer is always part of a businesses success.Just some successes are bettter than others but,they "all" count.This operator probably does not have the staff available to complete the repair successfully. We only hear about this one here. HOW MANY are probably out there with the same feelings??? As Norman said: corporate is not really interested after they have your money ~~~the shop is the one who should be interested. This in turn would build good will in 40yrs+ COTTMAN still hasn't got this idea working for them.THATS WHY I'M HERE AND NORMAN IS HERE.I'm sure Norman has heard all the stories an dealt with the other owners who don't have his mindset.How can this change?? With persons voicing their opinions and sharing their experiences for the public to see.MAYBE the corporate office will get their partners to follow suit~~~~~~~~~~THE TRANZMN

TO THE PUBLIC;~~~ The attitude displayed by the shop is common. As Norman said,a customer is always part of a businesses success.Just some successes are bettter than others but,they "all" count.This operator probably does not have the staff available to complete the repair successfully. We only hear about this one here. HOW MANY are probably out there with the same feelings??? As Norman said: corporate is not really interested after they have your money ~~~the shop is the one who should be interested. This in turn would build good will in 40yrs+ COTTMAN still hasn't got this idea working for them.THATS WHY I'M HERE AND NORMAN IS HERE.I'm sure Norman has heard all the stories an dealt with the other owners who don't have his mindset.How can this change?? With persons voicing their opinions and sharing their experiences for the public to see.MAYBE the corporate office will get their partners to follow suit~~~~~~~~~~THE TRANZMN

TO THE PUBLIC;~~~ The attitude displayed by the shop is common. As Norman said,a customer is always part of a businesses success.Just some successes are bettter than others but,they "all" count.This operator probably does not have the staff available to complete the repair successfully. We only hear about this one here. HOW MANY are probably out there with the same feelings??? As Norman said: corporate is not really interested after they have your money ~~~the shop is the one who should be interested. This in turn would build good will in 40yrs+ COTTMAN still hasn't got this idea working for them.THATS WHY I'M HERE AND NORMAN IS HERE.I'm sure Norman has heard all the stories an dealt with the other owners who don't have his mindset.How can this change?? With persons voicing their opinions and sharing their experiences for the public to see.MAYBE the corporate office will get their partners to follow suit~~~~~~~~~~THE TRANZMN

STANDARS OF WARRANTY~~~~CIVIL CODE~~1796/1796.5~~~~~ This every warranty customer should know about~~~Looking at all the warranty complaints~~~I looked up the remedies~~~~~THE TRANZMN

chris,

as a business person your last reply was unprofessional and rude.

i noticed in your first reply you said you wrote off the 400 or so bucks, we both know you can afford to do that, i noticed your customer said they are still having a problem with there trans, so if you wrote it off and the customer is free of his debt, call him in and fix his problem at no charge.

I used to be a cottman operator (past tense) i recall a young married couple who had there trans fail they lived remotley in the country, they authorized a repair, i fixed it then they found they could not come up with the money, and the woman could not get her daughter to school you know what i did, i called them and told them they could pick up there car and the repair was absoultly free, even repaired vehicles from the previous operator out of warranty at no charge when the home office would not back me up financially, all to keep customer goood will.
now i have been on this earth for nearly 1/2 century and i have figured out one thing, note: if you do the right thing it will come back to bless you.

flip open your cottman operators manual and read, note quote: "what is a customer........not a cold statistic, a name on a filling card or a ledger sheet, he is a flesh and blood human being with biases, predjuices, feelings and emotions like our own". so why don't you treat this person like a human being, and get off of his financial situation, you wrote off his 400 bucks now make the customer happy turn it around. have a good day from stormin norman in the dc area.

mr bowens,
im sorry if my telling the truth upset you
i think that by the last rebuttle that you
wrote speaks for its self . it wont be hard for the general public to figure out that your the
lame one who cant pay his bills and then when your back is against the wall you manipulated the system to avoid having to accept responsibility. this will be my last reply
it is only a matter of time before you expose yourself as the real con artist.

Dear Chris,
I feel that, that was a childish act. Of course you would get on and try to repair the damage done to Cottmans reputation. So funny that we had to take this to court, hire a lawyer, and still have justice served. Obviously the law was in our favor, and please don't give me that B.S. about you not getting paid. That was paid to the Tarrant County Court, which was then paid to you. Not only is your company lame, but so are all your workers. You even hire lame collection agents. You did talk to me on several occasions and the story was always the same, Just bring us the money when you can. I see why your sorry business is under new management. As for making a publicity of my bankruptcy, don't feel sorry for me, dealing with SOB's like yourself and ripping people off, force people to do drastic things. You know nothing about this case, but what your co-workers had told you, I never made a verbal agreement with you but with somone else that no longer works there. Also for that matter, I have all the documentation as to what was signed and what was not, and what could be held liable in court. I see that not one of your colleagues showed up in court!!! Thank you for the lovely work that was done to my TRANS AM. The transmissions still doesn't work worth a s**t. I guess you could say we paid for what we got ( a bunch of BULLSHIT. Don't start nothing, there won't be nothing.

this customer isnt telling you the whole story.
yes we financed the repair for him and he agreed to make payments he also signed a finance agreement. in the finance agreement he also signed a mechanics lein. after many many months of not recieving payments per our agreement
and 20 phone calls that were not returned
we hired a collection person to take care of the matter for us. (no one ever had a conversation with this customer he would not answer the phone
or we would have tried to work this out with him).

i think the reason the repo fees where so high
were because the customer was so hard to track
down and they were hiding the car. it took weeks of investigating and alot of man hours to find
the car.

here are the facts
1. the customer states he had a verbal agreement
this is not true we had a signed finace agreement

2. the customer did not call us every month in fact he never called.

3. even with out a job you still have to pay your bills. even the electric company will eventually turn your power off if the bill is not paid.

oh by the way we still havnt recieved the 485.00
that you owe but dont worry we wrote that off.
p.s. we did get the letter in the mail were you declared bankruptcy.
i guess we not the only ones trying to collect money from this customer

thank you chris shuler

Norman~~~~thank for gving him this advse you are 100% correct~~~~~~the shop can be held criminally liable~~~~~(owner) This is something for the d/a to look at~~~~don't let it go~~~~~~hold their feet to the fire~~~~~~~~THE TRANZMN

i noticed you stated you had a "verbal agreement" with the prior manager, did you have anything in writting concerning payment arangments?

an automotive business can not legaly come and reposes your vehicle if you owe them money, if the car is in your posession, they can take you to court, for the ballance.

did you sign over the title for collateral?
if the car remainded in there posession after repairs they could charge you storage and file a mechanics lean. but if you had posession of your car there only recourse would be to take you to court for the ballance, unless you signed some kind of document stating otherwise. unless you got some screwed up laws in your state.

if they took posession of your car from you, after giving you posession they could very well be guilty of grand theft auto, a criminal offense, if you owe them 485. that is civil, unless of course a bad check was involved. see a lawyer, see a police officer asap