Complaint Review: Cottmann Transmission - Shawnee Kansas

On Januaury of this year, I took my 1995 Mercury Sable GS to the cottmann transmission center in Shawnee, KS, due to the fact that some slippage was occuring with that car. I took it in and I talked to the manager Mike Allen, who said that he could get one of his techs to do a diagnostic check on it. The tech, a man named Carmen took my vehicle around the block for a diagnostic drive.

Upon his arrival he said to me that the transmission on the car was in bad shape, and that a major overhaul was needed, he said this without taking it for a longer diagnostic drive or without doing any type of computer diagnostic check which I thought was awfully suspicious. So I had them replace the pan gasket on the transmission and refill the fluid, all of that costed 86.00. In The middle of Febuaury the transmission on the car was slipping again, so I took it back to cottmann and once again talked to Mr.Allen, once again the tech Carmen took a look at the pan gasket and the fluid levels, all of those things checked out OK, so Carmen wanted to do another drive diagnostic check on the car, this time I went with him because I didnt trust him 100% after the last time I took the car to them.

So he drove the car out for the check, we didnt even get 1 block away from the shop and he said to me"well it looks like she's on her last leg"(referring to the transmission). So I went back to te shop and talked to Mr.allen again, to find out why they couldnt do a computer check on the car to find out exactly what the problem was, he said that they didnt have the equipment to do that, so my next question that I asked him was, "How muh to rebuild the transmission" he quoted a price between 1,500 and 2,500 which automatically threw up a red flag, so I told him that I needed some time to decide what my course of action was going to be.

Later that week I took my car to another mechanic-Eudell's auto repair( a very trustworthy mechanic). He looked at the car, did both a computer and an actual drive diagnostic check on the car, and determined that there was no transmission problem but it was something related to the fuel system.

I asked Eudell if most of the mechancis particularly the transmission mechanics had computer diagnostc equipment and he said they should since every car 1991 model and newer should have an electronic transmission. So there and then I knew they tried to hose me at Cottman. So in March of this year my neighbor took his car to Cottmann, and his transmission on his 1996 Mitsubishi Galant was completly Out, and he got the same run around and it took them 2 weeks to decide what they where going to do with his car, they even left the hood open on his car out in the parking lot inviting all of the would be thieves to steal parts out from under the hood.

When they finally gave him an answer, Mike Allen the same crook I dealt with, told my neighbor that they were waiting to get the parts from the Mitsubishi factory in Japan then they could repair his car. Right then and there he got ticked off and tried to have his car towed elsewhere, and Mr.Allen and my neighbor got into a little confrontation because Mr.Allen wanted his business and my neighbor wanted to take his business to another mecahnic, finally when it came down to it, the police almost got involved and mike agreed to let the tow truck on his lot so my neighbor could have his car towed elsewhere.

I think that was the biggest load of crap I have heard of, getting the parts from Japan, when all he had to do was order the parts from an auto parts store or the local mitsubishi dealer.

In May I traded my mercury in for a brand new Kia, when I got the new car I drove by Cottmann and told mike that the other mechanic had said there was no transmission problem on the mercury but it was a fuel related problem, and his response was "before we would have made any repairs we would have hooked it to the computer to find out if there was any problem" and I said to him " I thought you didnt have any computer diagnostic equipment, you Tried to rip me off " and turned away and walked out. So Mr. Allen lied in the first place about the computer diagnostic equipment and tried hose me out of 2,000 dollars.