AAMCO Transmission ripoff bait and switch lied holding car ransom El Cajon California

The transmission on my '94 Suburban went out last week, and I called the AAMCO Transmission shop in El Cajon (355 N. Johnson Ave, 619-442-0404). They quoted $1100-$1500 for a repair, and $2400-$2700 for a replacement, parts and labor inclusive. I had gotten a similar quote from a small transmission repair shop, so I decided to go with them.

I had the car towed to AAMCO on Friday. The next morning, they called and said there was metal in the transmission fluid and it was two quarts low on fluid. I had checked the fluid myself and it was full, but I didn't think much of it. They said in order to diagnose further, they needed to take the transmission apart. This would cost $550, which would be applied toward the total of $1100-$1500 or $2400-$2700. I thought this was high, but since it was going to be applied to the total I authorized them to go ahead with it.

On Monday I received a call from AAMCO, saying there was extensive damage inside the transmission, and it probably cost upwards of $3000 to repair, and around the same price to replace it. This was obviously not what they had originally quoted, but they were still working on finding a replacement transmission and didn't have a firm quote at that time. They said they would get a final quote and call me back.

I then called the Chevy dealership in El Cajon (Bob Baker Chevrolet) for a quote from them. They quoted $2083.56 to replace the transmission, parts and labor inclusive ($1589 parts, $494 labor). My father-in-law recently had his transmission replaced, and his Chevy Tahoe uses the same transmission. My wife spoke with him and found out he paid a total of $2000 exactly for his transmission and torque converter replacement, parts and labor inclusive. He had this work done at Action Transmission, which is a large transmission repair chain.

On Tuesday morning, I received another call from AAMCO, saying it would be $3200-$3500 to replace the transmission, and possibly even more to repair it. They said out of this, $550 was labor and the rest was parts. I told them they could get the parts from the Chevy dealership right around the corner from them for $1589, and that I would pay that plus their $550 labor. They were unwilling to do this because they mark up parts for a profit. They also said they had called the Chevy dealership and had been quoted $2700 for the replacement transmission. This was obviously false. I asked them how they could charge so much more than the dealership, and their response was that their parts were higher quality.

At that point, I let them know I was not going to pay that rediculously high amount. They denied having made the original quote and said that was only a "base price." I let them know I was taking the car to the dealership instead, and they demanded $550 in order to release the car to me. I let them know that my authorization of the diagnostic was only made under the conditions of the quote they had given me, and that I was still willing to have them do the work for their original quote and apply the $550 towards it.

At this point, my Suburban is locked up at the El Cajon AAMCO until I pay the $550 they are demanding in order to release it. I find it amazing that such a large auto repair chain would pull a classic bait-and-switch by getting authorization to perform work at a certain amount, and then raising the amount and refusing to release a person's car. I can only imagine the storage fees that are being added on to my eroneous bill.

Josh
San Diego, California
U.S.A.