Hope your weekend was better than mine....

[mcvickj]

When I woke up this morning I started calling around for some different prices. I found a different shop about 20 minutes from my place who specializes in transmission work. They offer free towing and diagnosing. I wish I found them sooner.

The reason I chose this shop is because he is going to pull the tranny out of the car and actually look at it to see what the problem is. Keller just wanted to replace it. Any work he has done up to this point will go towards the final bill. He is guessing about $1400 total on the high side for a rebuilt tranny. The rebuild would come with a 2 year warranty with unlimited milage.

I should know more tomorrow morning as to what the exact problem is. I am going to try to get over to his shop in the morning so I can look at the damage first hand.

 

[olds97_lss]

Good luck... I had a bad mechanic experiance, once. Then I found a new mechanic.

Took my 97 olds lss in because it wasn't running right. It would sputter, die, lurch... just not good. Took it in, he said I had a head gasket that was shot. So, they pull the head, replace the gasket, give it back, within 2 hours driveing time (1 hour commute to and from work), it was acting wierd and my check coolant light came on... this time, he said there was a plate on the engine that was between the fuel injectors and the head that antifreeze pumped through to help cool the engine. The plate thing was made of a composite material and it had warped. He told me this after letting it sit in his dead car lot for over a week.

So, he replaces it, the car is running fine, but now there's a new problem... it's knocking like a diesel. Well, he let it sit on his lot for about 2 weeks with a gallon or so of antifreeze sitting in the crank case and it destroyed my main crankshaft bearings. To replace those was another $2000 since he had to pull the engine. Or, $3500 for a used engine with 30K miles on it. The engine in it had 70K on it.

After all was said and done, he accepted responsibility for it sitting and destroying the bearings, but I was already into him for about $1500 for the original head gasket and the plastic thing that he replaced. So, we agreed that I'd pay $1800 for the used engine and he would eat all the labor.

So, I spent just over $3K to get my car back in running condition. All the while, I was still making payments on it and owed $5K.

This was about 4 years ago and now it's my wifes car. Still looks as good and runs as good as then. Differance is, now I own it. And it now has about 150K miles on it.

 

[stang]

i have owned 1 new car in my life and i will never get a new car again if you can get it fixed for around 1400.00 thats not a bad price i had over 2500.00 in to a rebuild trans in my thunderbird but it was for dragracing i would say anything over 2000.00 i would get a good used car

 

[psunitro]

Yeah,we have all been ripped off by these people. But,if its a local,reputable shop I say do the rebuild. If the transmissions have a known problem with them,don't get a used one. Just like the overdrive trans out of my old 3.3 Voyager.They die at 80,000-100,000 miles.