Mr. Transmission Ripoff Took back on two different occasions to complain about erractic shifting Complete rebuild had to be performed again by another repair shop Faulty parts were used in the original repair Jacksonville North Carolina

This is my first hand experience with that same Mr. Transmission facility that you did business with located on 1317 Lejeune Blvd. I would post a photo my original sales receipt as proof that I in fact did do business with them, but I don't know how to put a photo in here.

I don't even know if they are still there or not, it's been so long. The only reason I'm even posting this right now was because today I was cleaning out my glove box and found this more than 7 year old Mr. Transmission receipt still in my car dated 4-15-02.

When I was stationed in Camp Lejeune as an active duty Marine, the automatic transmission on my '86 Chevy Corvette started to go out. I stated to experience transmission noises and shifting problems. I had barely bought this car months earlier in California during leave. I had transported cross country to Jacksonville as my daily driver to get around in. So I wasn't to happy that already the transmission was giving me problems.

I took it to the Mr. Transmission there on Lejeune Blvd right outside the front gate of Camp Lejeune in April 2002. The guy at the front counter who I think was the manager, according to my receipt was "Mark". He would always answer the telephone with "Mr. Transmission, who's calling please?" He had a bald haircut. There was another heavy set guy there too that I sometimes spoke with instead. I don't remember his name.

I agreed to let them check out the transmission at no cost so they can tell me what I needed up front first. I left the car there while they checked it out, and waited to hear back. When my Gunnery Sergeant back on base heard that I had left my car with Mr. Transmission, he suggested that I get it out of there asap and to not let those guys do the work. That if I do I'm just plain stupid. He said something to the effect that a mini van he took in there was not fixed right, and that they had problems with them. He said that they rip people off. But I did not want to believe him, and I needed my car back on the road. I also remember reading some personal letters they had up on their lobby area wall form several high ranking Marines vouching for them. I think the one I read was from a Sergeant Major praising the transmission work on a family mini van or something like that.

Later they call me at work to say that the transmission indeed needed a rebuild which I expected, and invited me to come look at the parts for myself. So I get there and they take me in into the back of the shop through a passage way in the front office/lobby area, and showed me my transmission sitting there on a bench in many pieces. The guy who took it apart begins to show me parts he says are bad, burnt, and are causing my problems. He starts to kinda give me a class on how the complex internal components work. But before my head starts spinning I politely cut him short telling him I don't need to know how everything in a transmission works. I tell them to just go ahead and replace what it needs after getting an estimate inside.

About a week later I get called that it's ready to be picked up. I show up and sit down at the front office with "Mark" the manager if I recall his name correctly. It's $1,790 total for the rebuild, and $2,206 with an optional extended 36 month/50,000 mile warranty. I pay the higher price with the extended warranty and sign the papers.

He tells me that they had installed a "shift kit" at an additional cost shown in the invoice, which he says makes the transmission shift really "crisp" and "firm". I see that a new $286 torque converter was also one of the replaced items on the invoice. He tells me that he thinks I'm going to be pretty happy with how the transmission performs compared to before. Also told me that the guy who test drove my car after the rebuild came back quite "vocal" and had nothing but exiting things to say about how my Corvette now drives and shifts after the rebuild. He gives me my keys and I jump in my car.

The instant I pulled out into Lejeune Blvd right off their lot I knew something was wrong. Not with the transmission, but with my gas pedal. It was very wobbly and loose. The transmission felt fantastic, and shifted really "crisp" and firm like a Corvette should and exactly how he just told me. Now it felt more like a sports car. A massive improvement over stock. So I do a quick U-turn, pull back into their parking lot, get out, and look under the dash at the gas pedal. The bolted down plastic pivot base to my gas pedal was broken, and made it difficult to drive the car. I know it wasn't broken when I brought it in, so I suspected that the guy who test drove it went for a rather "spirited" test drive and broke the gas pedal in the process. After all it's a Corvette so he probably could not resist the urge to open it up some. I get Mark and he comes out and test drives the car himself with me riding passenger. He too is very happy with how crisp and firm the transmission shifts. The transmission on this car has always tended to slam into drive pretty hard from park even before the rebuild. I notice it still does it. I ask him if this is normal with both of us sitting in the car. He says it's totally normal for these transmissions to do that. He politely agrees with me about the gas pedal needing replacement and offers to order a new pedal at his expense and will call me when it comes in. So I head home with the car like that and drive around with a wobbly broken gas pedal for about a week waiting for his call.

He calls me back days later and tells me the gas pedal is no longer available from GM, he can't order it. He offers to fix my broken one for free. He says it will be a permanent repair. I take it in thinking they are going to fabricate some type of metal baseplate for it to replace the crappy plastic one that broke. Instead they use some type of epoxy glue to fix the old one, and it holds for some time. Eventually it breaks again on me. So I just order a new one from a corvette after market parts catalog for about $40 or something and that's the end of that problem. I never bother trying to get him to refund me the cost for the gas pedal or anything since he was so polite about the whole thing.

The only other issue I had besides the broken gas pedal was that the day after getting the car back, I crawled under the car to check for leaks and such. Instead I found several of the bolts that hold the transmission pan in place missing. I call and tell Mark about it. He kindly offers to install new bolts for free and could not tell me why his guys would not have installed all of the pan bolts. I go back, and they install new bolts. No fuss, no BS, no bad attitudes, nothing. I never had to go back for anything.


CONCLUSION:

As far as the rebuild work I'm super satisfied. So far I have enjoyed over 7 years of flawless daily performance from the rebuild they did back in April 2002. I still have the original dated sales and extended warranty agreement receipts to prove it. Here I am more than 7 years later and still own the same car. I've been driving it almost everyday since Mr. Transmission did that rebuild in 2002, and never a problem.

I did add an external transmission oil cooler myself about two years after to keep the trans fluid cooler and help extend the life of it. More than 90% of all transmission failures are due to overheating.

Their customer service was always good. They where never rude in any way.

Again the only two minor problems I had was that somebody broke my gas pedal, and that I found about 4 or 5 transmission pan bolts missing that they did not put back before they turned the car back over to me.

I know there are a lot of complaints about Mr. Transmission, and even a website called www.MrTransmissionSucks.com that I just saw today which pointed me here.

Hopefully nobody thinks I'm just writing a fake BS testimonial for them, since I can't figure out how to post a picture of my original sales receipt. I guess it just depends on what guy works on your car even though in reality it should not matter. Every guy in there should know what he's doing every time, not just some of the time.. But on my car, they did very good rebuild that so far has given me 7 years and counting of flawless, reliable transmission life. That's all I have to say.