I posted an original thread about a whining sound in 1st and 2nd. I have an extended warranty so I took my car in to AAMCO on a Friday. They took the tranny out and decided they needed to replace the bearings because they were pitted. They also recommended I get a new clutch because it was worn. Ok, so that was Tuesday evening. Then on Thursday, I haven't got a call, so I go there and the guys tells me the parts should be there in the morning and they should have it done by the evening. I am renting a car from Enterprise mind you so it is costing me a lot of cash just to drive around. Then on Friday I find out the manager had to head out of town for a funeral and the car isn't done. Now it is THIS Tuesday, the manager isn't there but another local AAMCO's owner is filling in. I pull in and they are bleeding the clutch and it is set to go. He goes on a test drive and everything is fine. I drop my car off and Enterprise and get a ride back.

I pay $405 for the rental and $560 for the clutch, tranny ($900) covered under the warranty. I get on the road and merge onto the interstate. The clutch is soft as hell as the owner told me it would be at first. I'm in 3rd at about 40mph and try to shift into 4th and the clutch pedal will not come off the floor. The synchros grind as I try to put it into 4th and I'm sh!tting my pants as I can't power the car. I pull over and end up driving in 1st to Enterprise and pick up a little econocar waiting for AAMCO to pick up my car from there in the morning.

So pissed. The manager said the latest it would be done would be on Friday. Now, if they fix it, it will be Wednesday, three work days later. I need my car for a 400 mile trip on THURSDAY! WTF! So pissed right now.

 

Go back and ***** the **** out of them to make your car the priority.

 

AAMCO is a terrible place to go to...

 

Make them pay for the rental

 

Thanks guys. The guy I was talking to last was really polite and he understood my complaints and suggested I spoke with the manager or owner of the place. They will pay for the piece of **** I'm driving now and I will request they pay for the previous rental or at least the days over they had the car. BTW, I went to AAMCO because the warranty company made me go there for the repair. Also, what could cause this problem. There was almost no resistence to the clutch. I would reach down and pul it up and it would pop back in place.

 

clutch hydraulics.. they either elft the bleeder screw open slightly and you got an air bubble in the system, or they left an air bubble in the system after they bled it the last time. they shouldn't have had to bleed it at all, as all you need to do is unbolt the whole thing from the tranny and set it aside.

they shouldn't have charged you $560 for a clutch either.. I don't know what kind they put in there, but an ACT is only about $375 and they're some of the more expensive ones. they charged you extra labor to remove/replaec the tranny when doing the clutch so that they could bill the warranty people for the rebuild on the tranny including removal/replacement as well.

basically they're screwing you out of tons of labor money, plus taking WAY too long to do it.

FYI, the last tranny rebuild I did for a customer took me 10 hours total from start to finish... except he wanted me to reuse his old clutch and now it's slipping and I have to tear it all out and do it again his car has been sitting in front of my place for two weeks now waiting on the clutch..

 

Thanks for the info. I will go more into the story. The car was making a sound, no performance problems so I was figuring a typical warranty repair. Well the guy said the clutch should be replaced since the tranny was dropped and he said it would cost $300-400. That was the price I thought it was going to cost until the last time I saw the manager and he told me it would cost $500 even. He didn't include tax in this either. I'm going to write down all my complaints and go to the owner of the shop. Oh and BTW, I hadn't got a single phone call from this place, I don't think they had my number until today.

 

I'm going to go in there and give them this and request the owner read it and respond to me ASAP when he returns from his Tranny convention:

 

AAMCO tried desperately to talk me out of my 5spd swap, and then asked for $6k when I insisted (ended up costing me $2.5k all-told from a good shop). They also tried to sucker a friend of mine into paying similarly preposterous amounts for tranny repairs on a '95 Eclipse.

They probably do really good work, but they seem to have a very "WE ARE A BIG COMPANY AND THEREFORE REALLY AWESOME AND WE KNOW BETTER THAN YOU, SO PAY US LOTS OF MONEY OR YOU'RE STUPID SO GO AWAY" kinda way of coming across.

 

Now get this. I picked up the car tonight and they told me there was air in the line that is why the clutch wasn't working properly. I took it for a test drive and it was working just great. I got home, ate dinner, took a shower and just NOW I went to drive it again and it won't start. It just clicks, nothing. There is plenty of power and all, just no starting! SO F'UCKING PISSED! The b!tch of the matter is I have this huge trip tomorrow and I need my car!

 

If it just clicks how do you know there's plenty of power? Try a jump start first. Also it's possible they didn't tighten the connections back up at the starter when they were doing the trans again. If you have a known good battery, and starter is connected well, it might need to be shimmed out a bit (too close to the flywheel.)

 

I think there is enough power. All lights come on fine, windows work, AC. I disconnected the battery and reconnected it with no change. If it was the battery, it would at least turn but it doesn't even get there.

 

It's not the battery. Remember his car started fine and drove home fine.

Let me do a quick search. I remember reading your symptoms somewhere. He didn't tighten something.

 

Yeah, maybe the solenoid for the starter?

BTW, I tried a jump to no avail.

 

They picked up the car, returned it within three hours with a new starter! YEY!

 

so no more problems with the new starter?

 

gee what a bad luck. Next time you tell your insurance company where you want your car fixed, and those national chains suck!

 

Just drove 400 miles in the car with no problems at all. The new starter sounds and feels strong!

 

They covered the extra rental charges?

 

If it's warrenty work, and the delays were their fault, I would insist on a rental car... Just my 1 cent...

 

Aamco sucks, do you know what kind of clutch they put in? What kind of warranty work was it?

 

qft...

10char...

 

Initial cost was $560 for clutch install. $405 for rental for nine days plus insurance (which I shouldn't have gotten). Then AAMCO reimbursed $100 to my card for rental and $139 for clutch. It isn't great but something.

 

The warranty work was for the tranny, bearings replaced for free. It was a Luk clutch they put in. I love the clutch. The engagement is essentially the same but the pedal feel is a lot softer from when I first got it at 42k miles.

 

Same crap I had, do you feel any vibrations in the clutch pedal with the luk clutch in?

 

Not at all, do you?

 

I did, but I got rid of that clutch pretty quick after having it put in

 

Really? Well I have a 12 month warranty on it so hopefully I won't have problems. The manager said it was top of the line but then again he didn't know anything about ACT.

 

Haha, well I felt my vibration right away, but with my new clutch I have no vibration it is a more direct feel, and I grabs better in my opinion.

 

aamco is the worst tranny shop i've ever been too. they put in a performance clutch for me and it was 90% softer than stock. they took that out and asked me to pay for another clutch while they send the other one back because it's defected. so i pay another $500 and get the other clutch, while it takes them a week to install. this clutch is as soft as the other one. wtf! i have never gotten the other clutch back and it's been 6 months. they did my tranny and my synchros for 3rd gear is bad and my bearings are bad. also i had to go back after they fixed it because of a leak. i feel your pain though.

 

Wow what a drama, what a story, glad the co-operated and kept working on you car. They should have re-imbursed you more but atleast they did give you back some money.

 

I went through 4 ATX rebuilds from them with my previous car. All warranty work, but a hassle every time. I finally put a MTX in myself so I didn't have to screw around with them anymore.

 

i know this thread is reallyyyyyy old but F U C K AAMCO.

bastards ripped my front lip off and trip to say that it was already like that.

so yea F U C K AAMCO

 

Aamco is rediculous. When I rebuilt my tranny I replaced a few bearings and one of the new ones was a different angle then the old one. So the housing in the tranny case needed to come out. I called Aamco and they said sure we can do that. I drove about 20 miles to their shop and they said they had no idea what I was talking about and that they wouldn't do that. I went across the street to a small independant shop and they said sure, $30. I try to explain to everyone I know that you really do need to know how to do all this stuff yourself because it's just too much friggen money to take your car in for anything anymore. not to mention they'll always do a crappy job. The only thing I take my car in for anymore is alignments.