Aamco rockville maryland Keith I was an employee. rockville Maryland

This is from an ex employee who one day decided to not show up for work and cannot be reached for over 2 weeks even after numerous calls and messages left.  After we hired another employee, out of the blue decided to call and said he will be coming to work.  When asked why he did not call or respond to our calls, no reasonable explanation given, just wanted his job back.  He states that he had owned a transmission shop for 10 years.

A customer brought in a Dodge Ram2500 with a transmission complaint. The customer brought in a vehicle for us to check because he noticed a problem with his transmission.  First of all , his position was a center manager, which his position was to receive customers and handle the front desk, answering calls and information from the customers and to issue repair orders and assign technicians work orders, test driving of the vehicles and diagnstics to be done are the responsibilities of the technicians.

 When asked about the Dodge Truck that was in the shop for 2 days without any work assigned to the techs, he said there was nothing wrong with the truck. I asked who checked out the vehicle and why there was no report. He said he drove the vehicle. I asked why he didn't assign the work to the technicians and how he check out the vehicle, he stated he just drove up the service road next to us and back and parked it.

I was dismayed and troubled with his explanation.  His duties as a center manager was to document history and concerns of customer, when did he first noticed the problem and for how long and whether does it happen all the time or intermittent or when after driving for a while, proper diagnosis of transmission is a complex issue, at times it can work fine when it's cold but acts up after driving after it gets hot.

For his information, this is how an extended warranty works, First we have to verify customer's complaint, after we find whether it is an external or internal issues, we have to call the warranty company of our findings before we do anything else and whether it is a covered item or not. If it is an internal problem, we have to get an authorization from the customer for tear down inspection, which requires  removal of tranmission and complet breakdown  of transmission to find out the cause of failure.

Once we find the cause of failure we contact the warranty company and they will send an inspector out to verify cause of failure and determined whether it is covered under warranty whole or partial and may decline  due to improper maintenance or neglect or abuse.  It is a very labor extensive. Sometimes it can take weeks.  

Secondly, the mazda tribute which he refers to was a Ford Escape which came in with no power , intermittent misfire,happened a month ago before bring it to us with 108,000 miles, with no transmission service done to the vehicle since new,  We have found misfire on cylinder #5 and #6,  faulty pcv hose causing a vaccum leak, valve cover gaskets leaking oil and plug seals leaking oil into the plug chambers, contaminating  coils,, o2 sensors contaminated with oil from the leak,, oil change overdue by about 4,000 miles,

Due to prolonged misfire on  secondary bank, had caused the damage to the catalytic converter, destrying the catalyst.  This vehicle has a 3 catalytic converters, one on left bank and right bank of the engine and 3rd on  the bottom of vehicle.  We replaced 2 coils which were contaminated causing misfire on cylinder #5 and #6, valve cover gasket and plug seals on problem bank. pcv hose and contaminated sensors,

The front catalytic converter that failed due to prolonged misfiring is of a honeycomb design which the exhaust gas passes through the catalyst  and they had broken up in pieces and all the debris had collected in the screen of the 3rd catalytic converter which is of flat pan design, it has a primary and secondary screen which had collected all the debris from the front cat.there was no reason to replace the 3rd catalytic converter as it was not damaged, we had removed the screen that was clogged at no expense to the customer. We only replaced what was needed to bring it back to working order.  

Any time a cat fails it is usually the ones up on the upper side that is directly in relation to the cylinders that was having a misfire concerns, for his information, we had done a vehicle where another shop had replaced the secondary converter and actually it was a primary converter that failed.    I don't know what his experience with automotive or the knowledge but if you had  worked in this field for 10 years and that not all vehicles with transmission concerns aren't actually transmission  concerns at all.  There could always be multiple layered concerns.  

Lastly, I would question his integrity and character  for not showing up for several weeks  without any reason or explanation and not returning calls after numerous attempt to contact hi. failing to follow procedures and filing a false unemplyment claims and not taking accountability of his own actions. 

Unfortunately there are more dishonest people than honest ones, but unfortunately for the bad guys there are people like you.  Good luck and God Bless.