I have a personal experience to share with this company.
My wife took her SUV in to her dealership to have a recall item taken care of recently. While she went back to pick up her truck they gave her a $2500 estimate on a fix for what they said was an issue with an electronic component related to the transmission. According to them, this caused a fault in my SUV's system which puts the transmission into a "limp mode." In this mode, the transmission goes into a limited shift, and operates very slowly.
Now, mind you, my wife saw nothing wrong with her vehicle. It previously ran fine according to her. But when she picked it up from the dealership, it started displaying a warning indication, and the transmission would intermittently go into "limp mode." The dealership had insisted to my wife that this was an immediate issue and that it needed to be resolved urgently. They told her the truck would "break down," and leave her stranded.
Something just didn't seem right to me. I switched vehicles with my wife and drove it for over a week. Some days nothing would happen, or it would happen sometimes two or three times in one day, only stopping when you turn the vehicle off and turn it back on. I went online, looking for transmission places and found this report. Transmission shops have a notorious reputation -- warranted or not -- and I wanted to see what other people's were saying. At the same time, I'm a business person, myself, so I know there are two sides to every story. I also know that people can be unreasonable, no matter what.
Well, at AAMCO, they offer a free diagnostics service, where they check out the vehicle and give you detailed, computer-produced information on the problem, and an estimate on what the cost would be. I figured I had nothing to lose, letting them check it out. I was already facing a $2500 repair bill. I met with Bill, the manager at the location referenced in this report, on MLK in Clearwater. I left my truck with him and he said he'd call me.
After checking it out for a couple of hours, and finding nothing wrong in the transmission, Bill asked my permission to complete further checks on the related electrical system, which would take longer -- he needed the truck to stay til the next day. How much would this further inspection cost? I wanted to know. Nothing. Bill stated. I agreed.
After hours and hours of diagnostics where they checked for everything they could on the vehicle, they reset the computer to turn off the warning indicators. Bill told me there was nothing he could find which would have caused the faults the vehicle was encountering, all components checked out and it was running fine. He did call me to say that the electronic component in question had obviously been worked on, and that it was left either open or loose (I forget which one). He had his tech put it back together.
This has been about a month, and I have had no reoccurence of the "underpower" issue, or of the warning indicator, which would show after coming from the dealer. I would hate to believe that the dealership did anything to my wife's truck. I purposely left out the name of the dealership, or even the make of my wife's SUV because I'd not want to badmouth someone unless I'm 100% sure. But I can tell you the truck is fine, with no issues, whatsoever. I'll just say I don't know what happened here.
But the point I want to iterate is that all this was done at absolutely no charge to me, after the AAMCO shop had invested many man hours and the use of much computerized equipment for no charge. Not one red cent! The dealership actually charged my wife $120 for the diagnostics they did.
I don't know what happened in the situation originally reported here, but I just want folks to know there are other sides to things, too. Bill could have easily told me anything, He could have given me a lower price than the dealer to "fix" that which wasn't broken in the first place. Any number of things. But he didn't do that. He diagnosed my vehicle to the best of his ability, and, when nothing was found wrong, put everything back together (something even the dealership didn't do), and had me pick up my truck.
I can tell you, this AAMCO shop has a customer for life, and I've been telling everybody I know about my experience there.
Why file a report here? Ripoff Report is a permanent record! Other complaint sites copy our content then remove reports for money.
