Complaint Review: Aamco Transmission - Hayward California

Well, my complaining combined with the Bureau of Automotive Repair, has helped me to get my money back. It turns out that the problem was mostly with the one mechanic at Aamco who was assigned to fix my car. He has since been fired. I've been told a check will be mailed out to me, for the full amount of the repair. Thank You to The B.A.R., to Ripoffreport.com and of course, Thank you "Nathan", owner of the Hayward Ca Aamco, for taking the time to make things right. I really do appreciate that you're refunding my money. Thank You.

As a company that cares about its customers and relies on repeat business, Mrs. Oldham's complaints are not easy for us to hear. However, her claim that we did not perform the repair we charged her for is not true. Unfortunately, because of how this has played out, it is difficult to satisfactorily resolve this situation. Mrs. Oldham first contacted us in March, indicating that someone had done some work on her transmission and had cut the cooler lines from the transmission to the radiator, that the lines were leaking, and that she would like to have them fixed. The person who had worked on the car previously was in another town and she did not feel comfortable driving it back there. We offer a free diagnostic service, and when looking at Mrs. Oldham's vehicle, we noted that the cooler lines had been cut and that rubber hose had been clamped to the line. Mrs. Oldham was on a tight budget, and the metal cooler lines were not available in fabricated form from the dealer. Because of her budget and the fact that the so-called six foot "sticks" (replacement lines) have to be cut, bent and fit with different fittings, we suggested that we flare the end of the line and reclamp the hose. Mrs. Oldham agreed to the repair and she picked up her car. She authorized and paid for us to flare the cooler line and re-clamp the rubber hose, and that is what is indicated on her repair order. We did not claim to make or charge for repairs that were not made to the car. We performed exactly the repair that Mrs. Oldham authorized. Mrs. Oldham brought her car back to us six weeks later indicating that it was leaking. We looked at the car and it was leaking. If fact, the transmission was leaking from a few different places in addition to the cooler lines. We fixed the cooler lines and informed Mrs. Oldham of the other leaks -- all the additional leaks were from the transmission. The transmission that someone else had worked on before it ever came to our shop. Two months later, Mrs. Oldham's father phoned the shop and accused us, in essence, of sabotaging her transmission. He said that we told them we had to remove the transmission to fix the cooler lines and that we had damaged the other transmission seals in the process. During this conversation, Mrs. Oldham's father was focused on claiming that we had removed the transmission from the car and damaged it in the process, which was not true. We never claimed to have removed the transmission, we never actually removed the transmission and removing the transmission to repair cooler lines is unnecessary. He did acknowledge that that the transmission has been worked on before it came to our shop. Since that conversation with Mrs. Oldham's father, we have had no contact from either him or Mrs. Oldham. Mrs. Oldham has posted a few complaints like this one online and she has contacted the Bureau of Automotive Repair (BAR). Each time, she makes a different claim as to what we did or did not do, and each of those claims is different from the conversation we had with her father. For the record, the BAR has visited the shop and has concluded that we did nothing wrong. From our perspective, the bottom line is that we stand behind our work and warranty every job. We told Mrs. Oldham what we were going to do and how much it would cost, she approved the repair and signed the paperwork. We work on thousands of vehicles every year, and have many repeat customers -- if did not do a good job and treat people well, this would not be possible. We work hard to make people happy. It is possible that Mrs. Oldham's cooler lines were leaking and required some additional work as she claims. We can never know. Mrs. Oldham did not give us the opportunity to look at her car after April, and in the event that was not convenient, she never sent us a diagnostic report from a licensed repair facility that we could use to evaluate our work. The way Mrs. Oldham has chosen to resolve this situation is by accusing us of lying and breaking the law, which we have not done. And making these accusations, which have been found groundless by the BAR, does not solve anything. All it does is make it more difficult to engage in reasonable dialog.

You are probably better off going to the smaller independant shop for repairs. The bigger franchises have royalties and franchise fees to pay. And guess who pays those fees? You!! Those big chains are not interested in building a customer base with honesty and integrity, they are looking for the big fast dollar and see ya later.