Firestone complete Auto Care Bridgestone Faulty Mechanical work, don't honor warranty, "fixed right guarantee" false advertisement, courtesy checks are not performed Internet

5/21/11
My husband and I took my 1992 Ford Thunderbird to Firestone Complete Auto Care due to transmission oil leaks. No additional problems were mentioned to us according to their so called courtesy check.

8/4/2011
Upon leaving the E.R. I went to the hospital garage to retrieve my car and noticed not some, but all my transmission fluid was all over the concrete. I had to call my husband to leave work ( he is a professional and ASE certified mechanic) to come pick me up. When he arrived to the hospital he jacked up the car to see if something minor came lose and examine the leaks. He saw the bell housing (where one of the seals were replaced) were severely leaking transmission oil.   He then called the Firestone in which supposedly fixed my car to begin with and explained the situation and they sent a tow truck to get my car and take it to their shop thinking it was going to the same shop that fixed my car and that they were going to look and asses the damages since my mechanical work was still under warranty. When the tow trucker got there my husband were horrified in watching him twist, jerk, and pull my steering wheel (the steering wheel automatically locks when the car is off) and we told him that but he still did it and used my driver side seat belt to to tie down my steering wheel. After that my car was towed away.

8/6/11
I called and made acomplaint and filed a complaint with Firestone consumer affairs about the damage to my transmission. It was the weekend so it took a couple of days.

8/8/11
I called the firestone that supposedly had my car. Turns out, it never made it to them. I was told by the manager (G.B.) to call AAMCO and talk to a man named T. Upon talking to T I was told firestone never had my car. It was directly taken to AAMCO. Then he gave me a damage report and offered to refix it for roughly $1000.00!
(A) There were holes in the transmission pan with rubber plugs in it
(B) There were black clutch particles in the transmission.
(C) The transmission was making weird noises and sounded funny.
(0) The seals that were put in by Firestone kept "popping out"
(E) My steering wheel was not at all working
(F) My transmission was never inspected and diagnostics were not ran on it or it would have shown most of the problems.
(E) Transmission line was corroded

Now I ask myself, if no work was propperly assesd and professionally done with the complete courtesy check, why then did I have a $707.00 bill? I was then contacted by a Firestones claim Rep J.M. He said he was sending a 3rd party investigator to AAMCO to see about my car damage. I
explained what happened and how rude Firestone and AMMCO personel were cussing at me
and constantly hanging up on me. He said he would try to get me a rental if he could get the approval while the investigation was pending which, should only take up to 3 days acording to him. I asked him
why would Firestone give a 6 month warranty on their workthat they performed (which I know they
do matter of factly since my husband used to work for Firestone, which is why we trusted them
with my car) as well as their" Fixed Right Guarantee or we will re-perform the service at no additonal
charge". ( <--- which I have that on a flier they sent to us after the repair in May) The Rep had
no comment.

8/9/11
I was approved for a rental but had to put down a deposit for us to obtain thier courtesy rental. Me thinking I had only 3 days since that was how long the investigation was suppose to take, now has a balance owed to the rental company due to Firestone not keeping me posted on how long I would have my rental.

8/23/11
An unknown mechanic from AAMCO called and said "Firestone is not accepting any liability to your car and I was told to tell you." So I told him" you are not a claims rep nor a person of authority and you have no business calling me". He then yelled back "I was just relaying a F"n message so what the f" do you want me to do with your car"? I said" not a d**n thing". Then he hung up on mez1 I then called the claims rep J.M. that I was working but he didn't get back to me until the next
day.

8/24/11
J.M. finally called and said he had no knowledge of anyone calling me and that the investigation wasn't even completed yet since my case was still pending and had not been closed. But he would surely look into it.

8/26/11
J.M. called and said Firestone takes NO claim or responsibilities for repairs to my car and that I can have another shop look at it. He also said if the new shop mechanic found that my transmission failing was due to their work to call him back. I was not satisfied with being carless due to their negligence in maintaining their faulty repairs and warrranty issue lies since my car was and is still under their warranty so I asked to speak to his supervisor. While waiting to hear from the Firestone Consumer Affairs Supervisor I called AAMCO again to get the finalized damage report (verbally since they have yet to give me ANY paperwork on their assesment) and he repeated pretty much the same thing he did before.
(A) Seals keep popping out
(B) Transmission pan needs to be replaced
(C) Transmission line was corroded and needed to be replaced
(D) Transmission oil color was not right and had clutch particles in it
(E) Internal issues to the transmission
(F) Steering bushing/ column is broken

I was finally after 3 hours contacted by a very rude Fireston Consumer Affairs supervisor (S.G.). He said regardless of the issues my car is having "now" they have to go by what the investigaters report and review however admitting the turn of events seemed odd but it happened naturally due to wear and tear and not due to their neglect. Since, according to him I managed to put 20 thousand miles from 5/21/11 until 8/04/11, which I found very funny. I asked him what did the odometer mileage say when it was test driven the day we took it in and after the work was done? He said we didn't drive it and I only know the car had over lOOk miles on it. I laughed and said ok, now what was the ending mileage when my car broke down on 8/4/11? He said he didn't have any record of it and it was irrelevant when indeed it was ironic that they had a vehicle in their possession that had an odometer that DID NOT WORK AT ALL! A new Odometer/ speedometer was not purchased until 6/26/11 and I have the reciept therefore, how can his 20k mile lie hold when in fact I have proof they were lying from the beggining ? I then asked him if they perform courtesty checks on all cars coming in for transmission work or any kind of work. Gruffly he said yes. I said ok, answer me this then: how could my transmission line which was said later to be corroded and leaking go undetected while it was being "checked" ? He said "we didn't have to check it at all, besides it went out due to wear and tear." So I then asked, when firestone removed my transmission they didn't notice anything odd about the line when they worked on my transmission while it was disconnected? He said we don't have to disconnect the line at all. So I told him, "Any professional when working on transmission should know the line is to be disconnected before they take out a transmission and re connect it when they put it back in". He got ugly and rude and said they didn't have to do it so they didn't. 2 hours later they made me take my rental back leaving me with a balance of $113.89.

9/14/11
I called Eagle transmissions to have my car picked up from AAMCO and taken to their shop to be evaluated. Unbeknownst to me, my car wasn't their but at the Firestone that originally did the work without my knowledge to anything. Because they had an additonal trip I am being charged a fee for AAMCO's negligence in telling me where my car was. My car is in fact at Eagles Transmission now.

9/19/11
I spoke to the owner/ mechanic of Eagles Transmissions and he pointed out a few but not yet all damages that were done to my car.
(A) The entire steering column is broken and the rack and pinion are completely damaged
(thanks to the firestone tow truck guy)
(B) Firestone did not perform the courtesty check at all or the diagnostic reading would have
shown the internal issues and would have identified the transmission needed a complete
overhaul, which they should have told me but didn't and that was why the seals "kept bursting out" as AAMCO said.

This whole ordeal has brought nothing but stress on my marriage, mental anguish, and has kept me from working and turning down jobs that were not in bus routes. I was treated unjustly and taken advantage of. I personally would never recommend Firestone to anyone I know.