AAMCO Greensboro, NC Didn't repair my transmission and didn't honor warranty Greensboro North Carolina

I took my Infinity Q45 to AAMCO in Greensboro, NC (High Point Road) to get the transmission repaired.  The transmission was slipping and very rough shifting.  The owner, Don, assured me that they would check it out and let me know if it needed repairing.  They offered a "free diagnosis" to check it out and let me know what was wrong.  Well I contacted them back the next day and they told me they couldn't tell the problem and needed to remove the transmission to determine the problem at a cost of $150 if I remember correctly. Of course this amount was to be credited toward any work done.  I did not understand at the time the psychology they were using to hook me into a contract.  Tim was the name of the manager.

Well I got a call back and they told me I needed to have my transmission rebuilt.  Since I had already invested $150 (it may have been more but I dont recall) into the transmission with the "diagnosis" I told them to go ahead and do the work.  The cost was to be $2,500.  Money that I didn't have at the time being newly married.  Money that we could have used for many other things and that we needed badly.

Well, they finished the work and I picked the car up.  It seemed to drive okay at first but within a short time it became apparent that there were problems.  Vibrations at certain speeds and very rough shifting came right back.  I took it back to AAMCO to have it checked out.  The mechanic test drove it but didn't see any problems.  I took it back a second time a few weeks later and they told me to leave it there (which was an inconvenience) so they could check it out.  Well after a couple of days without my car I received a call to come pick it up.  They said they couldn't find anything wrong once again.  I took the car back a third time with the same results.

I began to get very frustrated.  I had taken my car to AAMCO to have the transmission problems repaired.  AAMCO had told me that they had looked at the transmission and repairing it would fix the problem.  But the problem wasn't fixed.  I paid $2,500 but the transmission was still not working properly.  Now it is months after I took it in for repairs and I am getting concerned about the warranty running out.  Since the warranty says it can be honored at any AAMCO I decided to take it to another AAMCO to have it checked.

I made an appointment and took it to the AAMCO in Winston-Salem, NC.  I did not tell them about the work previously done.  They had a technician ride with me so he could witness the problem.  We drove for about 20 minutes and he told me that the transmission needed rebuilding!  After that I told him that I had already had it rebuilt in Greensboro.  The manager came out and started indicating that I would have to take it up with the owner of the AAMCO in Greensboro.  Well, I called him and he told me that they would have to check the car out further before they could do anything.

The next day I was called by the manager of the Winston-Salem AAMCO and he told me that they had taken my car to the Infinity dealership and that they had run a diagnostic and found that the engine knock sensor was the problem.  My thought was "Why didn't they do this the first time before rebuilding the transmission?"  It became obvious to me that I wasn't dealing with honest people.  As it turns out the owner of the Greensboro AAMCO was closely connected to the Winston-Salem store.  He may have owned it but I remember the manager of the Winston-Salem store was very close to him.

So in the end I paid $2,500 for a transmission repair that didn't fix the transmission.  I got the run-around when I tried to get the problem fixed.  AAMCO never suggested that the transmission problems could be caused by a knock sensor or anything else.  The transmission was slipping badly and slamming into gear on shifting.  The problem wasn't remedied with the "rebuild" AAMCO did. 

After trying many times to get the problem fixed at AAMCO Greensboro I took it to another AAMCO.  The other AAMCO (Winston-Salem) had close connections to Greensboro AAMCO and refused to fix the transmission after saying they would do it since it was under warranty.  The manager of the Winston-Salem AAMCO later told me that the Greensboro owner would have to approve the work before they could do anything.  Of course the Greensboro owner would not approve it.  Instead they took the car to Infinity and got a "diagnosis" that showed a knock sensor fault. 

I will never go to AAMCO again and will recommend to EVERYONE I come across (and have been doing fo a while) to find another place to get their transmission fixed.  I tell my story when I have the opportunity.  People, DO NOT take your car to AAMCO in Greensboro, NC or Winston-Salem, NC.  My experience has been that they are dishonest and care more about raking in bags of cash than actually repairing cars.  You will not find any consumer help in NC either.  Zip, Zilch, Nada.  They don't even have a department of consumer affairs in NC.  Take your car to a mechanic who gives you a personal recommendation from someone.  I made a mistake but will not make it again and will try my best to help others avoid the same mistake I made.

Dealing with AAMCO has been a real nightmare.  I wasted $2,500 plus hours and hours and many miles of driving and a lot of inconveniences trying to get the problem actually fixed.  These people profited off of me and never fixed my problem.  Eventually the car quit altogether.  If the car was doing the same things after the "repair" as before the repair then it is obvious that the repair was not the right thing to do.  If the knock sensor was actually causing the problem then AAMCO should not have recommended a transmission repair.  But my hunch is that the transmission repair wasn't done properly or wasn't done at all or wasn't the problem.  In ANY of these cases AAMCO was at fault.