THEY ARE A HUGE RIP OFF! THEY TELL YOU IT COSTS A CERTAIN PRICE TO GET YOUR CAR FIXED, NEXT THING YOU KNOW YOU PAY IT THEN THEY ASK FOR MORE MONEY!!! DO NOT USE AAMCO. JAMES IS A LIAR AND THEY ARE SCAMINNG PEOPLE OUT OF HARD EARNED MONEY. THEY TOLD ME IT WAS MY FLEX PLATE, I paid over $800 for that and then once I paid that he calls with another issue! They are full of s***.
Nov 2014 I had a bad experience with AAMCO TRANSMISSION located at 11612 N Florida Ave Tampa Fl. I do not recommend to no one, they switch there prices. Im going in with not bad transmission and I come out with the car doing nothing and changing my new battery to their old one. Plus based on Mr. Charles change the price from one to another with no warning. This company is prepared to rob the clients. Im not upset because they didnt fix it all, i really wanted was estimate is the rob they do to me, the amount I pay for checking the transmission was $589.00 dollars. I explain to Mr. Charles before you do anything, If the fix was goin to be more than $900.00 dollars, I said dont do it. Mr. Charles said based in his knowledge to fix transmission is no cost me more than that.After that day for 3 days no communication I had to call him, at the end my price was $ 2,224.00 dollars really. They insisting me to get a finance, I was really clear that it was no more than $900.00 dollars. I call coorporated and Mrs. MIchelle said she coulndt help me to remburse the money cause i sign the receipt. If I dont sign the won give me the car back. The mechanic when giving me the car felt so bad for me, and said sorry for me because of what they did to me. Even the mechanic new what was going on. Mr. Charles never gave me his face againg not that his word was any good anyway. I EXPECTED SOMETHING MORE PROFESSIONALISM FROM THIS COMPANY. Bad decision, MY ADVISE is NEVER EVER GO TO THERE. Bad place,service and non professional.
Hi, You probably don't know me but my name is Ted McFarland. I live in South Carolina and I just wanted to recount an event in my life that I think every consumer who owns a motor vehicle should at least be aware of.
I was recently traveling from south Florida back to my home in South Carolina and traveling on I95 through the Titusville area when I experienced transmission problems. Not being familiar with the area, I called an Aamco franchisee to check my vehicle out for me. Long story short, my vehicle was down for 2 weeks and it cost me about $2,700.00 for what was billed as a complete transmission rebuild with a 12 month 12,000 mile warranty.
I picked up my vehicle and was not 10 miles out of town back on I95 when all the same warnings began beeping and flashing. 'ABS' brake fail light, Check transmission warning and Transmission Overheating. Since I really wanted to get back home as I had had to drive a rental back down to Titusville to pick up the vehicle after the 2 week repair job I kept going and stopped at another Aamco franchisee in Jacksonville to have the transmission checked.
Yes, the transmission had to come back out and I would probably be down at least another 3-5 days. I asked if there was any chance that it would get me back home and was told that the slower I kept the speed the overheating problem would probably not be a problem and I continued on. Since the rest of my trip was on rural roads I figured I would be able to keep it around 45mph for the rest of the trip.
I did make it home and immediately contacted Aamco corporate to have them repair my vehicle under the warranty. However, since the nearest Aamco to me was some 50 miles away I asked that they tow the vehicle to their shop because otherwise I've got to have someone follow me over to drop it off and then again to pick it up. I explained that if the problem was a warranty problem that they should stand for the tow and if it wasn't that they could just bill it to me with the repair. They refused.
Well, two weeks later I was back down in the Ft Lauderdale area and my wife and I rented a car and drove over to another Aamco franchise. That franchisee just flat refused to take my vehicle in. On the way back from that trip the transmission went out again and I took it to a local transmission shop in my town and had it repaired.
However, I did get a report from the transmission shop that did the final repair as to what was the problem and here is what he told me. There is a sleeve type bearing that goes around the shaft just before the torgue converter. That sleeve has a hole in it by which the transmission fluid circulates from the transmission to the cooling lines in the radiator. That sleeve had been installed backwards and therefore the holes didn't line up and so my transmission had been running all of this time without any way to cool the hot fluid. Hence, all the warnings were a result of the fluid temperature in the transmission being very, very hot until it ultimately burned through all the seals again. Here are some things that I learned about the Aamco brand and I imagine this also applies to the Cottman brand as they are both owned under the same umbrella company. Despite what the sign says about them being 'expert' in car care, it just isn't so. There 'nationwide warranty' isn't worth the paper that it's printed on.
Here's what happened in my case. When I stopped in Jacksonville the technician test drove the car and then went immediately to his office before talking to me and called the other franchisee who had done the work. This seems perfectly normal and I thought he was just checking to see what all had been done and if he might have any idea why there was a problem, but that isn't really the purpose of that call. If the original franchisee doesn't agree to pay the 2nd repair shop for the work they are going to have to do - they won't get paid. So, the real purpose of that call is to say, hey, I got this vehicle in here and it looks like it may need warranty repair, are you going to reimburse me for it? This was how Mike Pekula of Aamco corporate explained it to me.
So, apparently the first time I took my vehicle in for a warranty claim the original franchisee was willing to pay for the repairs, but when I went to the second he refused. Same vehicle, same problem one day they'll fix it and the next day they won't. Surely anyone can see the problems with such a 'voluntary' repayment system to handle warranty claims.
Then when you try to get the Aamco corporate office involved they pretty much wash their hands of any liability and say it's got to be handled by the original franchisee that did the work. Their words to me were, "We can't tell our franchisee's what to do." So, here I am stuck with a worthless $2,700.00 repair job that neither the franchisee nor the corporate office will offer any help for.
My recommendation is that if there is any other reasonable option for getting transmission repair work done, and remember this 'nationwide warranty' works the same on all of their repaire, get it done somewhere else. Here are some sites one might want to peruse if considering Aamco or Cottman as a repair facility.
From October 2013 to May 2014 I had my transmission rebuilt 3 times from AAMCO and they all failed. When it started to fail for the 4th time I took it to another transmission repair shop and was told a part inside the trasnmission broke and that there was metal debris in the transmission oil so another rebuilt was performed and now it is working fine.
Every time the transmission failed I would have to pay a tow truck for which the company did not pay. They ripped me off with more that 3000.00 dollars
I brought my car there to get fixed with my transmission , long stoy short the had my car for more then 4 weeks and during those weeks I had picked it up and brought it back if not the day I picked it up or the next day and this went on and on . When I did get it back it worked for a few weeks and did the same things it was doing before , brought it to someone else they saw that the case was cracked beyond repair and that they just did a quick fix to make it work for the short time it did . Also my car could have blown up on me because of them . Then I couldn't find my work sheet from them so I went back to get it and they didn't even have t in the computer the macanic had to give the girl in the front a copy of what he did on a sticky note 15 min. later she plugged it into her computer while I was standing there and I had her write on the bottom that she did this while I was standing tere ad they had no record of it on file nor the payment that was in cash makes you wonder what he really does with the money when he dosen't even record it , I paid him also I have another station that is also in trouble with me for doing all this to begin with and I also have filed a lawsuite , the whole time just to have my car back and get it fixed right I had planed on suing the whole time and the transmission was also still under warranty when it broke down 9 months before , I had a 1 year warrantyh and not AAmco nor BB getty gas station gave me that either.
In all I shelled out 9,000 dollars , 2 transmissions from them andthe good one I have now that I didn't mindpaying for that one .I only should have had to pay for one transmission anyway , also I had a stroke when this was going on and Steve Grandinetti called me stupid and an idiot on the phone because I couldn't speek right from the stroke he is a very rude man and I have had a couple more strokes so it has taken me some time to get this all done but I am better now and everything is a go !! Stay away from this guy !!!
Four weeks ago, I took my car to have a free presure test because it was overheating. The car was running fine other than that. I told them that I wanted to have the water pump and the radiator replaced. I had already put a thermostat in the car. Four days later I called them and they told me they had bad news, that my transmission was leaking. I told them that I had just had it serviced and that it was working fine. I authorised the repair of the cooling system. A week later, I called them and asked about the car and they told me that they had pulled the transmission, and it needed a major overhaul... I asked well, how much is that going to cost? and they told me,they didnt know. Two weeks later, it still was not ready, and I asked how much the bill was going to be. The answer was unreal! $5155.93.... I said that I would have a hard time coming up with that kind of money, and Gary ,the service manager told me, "Don't worry. we have financing!". The financing company told me they would only cover $3000 of the bill, and I would have to come up with the rest... The financing rate was 31%! I have all of the previous invoices from when the car was repaired... and a statement from my regular mechanic stating that the car was fine two months ago... I later found out that this company is FAMOUS in legal circles... That the federal trade commission, and consumer fraud protection departments in just about every state have had complaints... I hope that there is an attorney out there that wants to get into a CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT to shut these people down forever!!! There are thousands of unhappy customers, that have taken their vehicles to them for other reasons, and had their transmissions taken out of the car. Then not given a proper estimate, until the work has already been done. DO NOT TAKE YOUR CAR TO AAMCO TRANSMISSION!! They have been doing the same thing to tens of thousand of people for over 35 years.
Four weeks ago, I took my car to have a free presure test because it was overheating. The car was running fine other than that. I told them that I wanted to have the water pump and the radiator replaced. I had already put a thermostat in the car. Four days later I called them and they told me they had bad news, that my transmission was leaking. I told them that I had just had it serviced and that it was working fine. I authorised the repair of the cooling system. A week later, I called them and asked about the car and they told me that they had pulled the transmission, and it needed a major overhaul... I asked well, how much is that going to cost? and they told me,they didnt know. Two weeks later, it still was not ready, and I asked how much the bill was going to be. The answer was unreal! $5155.93.... I said that I would have a hard time coming up with that kind of money, and Gary ,the service manager told me, "Don't worry... we have financing!". The financing company told me they would only cover $3000 of the bill, and I would have to come up with the rest... The financing rate was 31%! I have all of the previous invoices from when the car was repaired... and a statement from my regular mechanic stating that the car was fine two months ago... I later found out that this company is FAMOUS in legal circles... That the federal trade commission, and consumer fraud protection departments in just about every state have had complaints... I hope that there is an attorney out there that wants to get into a CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT to shut these people down forever!!! There are thousands of unhappy customers, that have taken their vehicles to them for other reasons, and had their transmissions taken out of the car. Then not given a proper estimate, until the work has already been done. DO NOT TAKE YOUR CAR TO AAMCO TRANSMISSION!! They have been doing the same thing to tens of thousand of people for over 35 years.
My son and i took his transmission to aamco lakewood store. at first the price was under 1000.00 then it went to 1800.00 once it was out of the car that was a nice trick ok then lets fix this thing right do the whole thing ...replace everything right wrong... you just pay for that. they put a few new parts in it and said come get,the car went 5 miles and was burnt up so back it went they were mad it some how was our falt ..2 weeks later itsfixed again ok about time well it went about4 miles really... back it goes now the big hot head at the desk is really being a jerk to us hes not going to fix it again he says it must be the computer so we are like well is it or not you should shoud know not us...i think his ink went in a little to deep.. so then they dont know and he says you have to take it to the dealer to have the computer checked you pay ...
so off to the dealer it goes they hook it up and start laughing about the aamco tecs. the draler says the computer is fine and the transmission is sliping in first and second and it needs to be rebuilt again o man i cant belive this... so back it goes they are really mad at us now. we were told to pick it up in one week ok . we go to get it buy now we know to just call but they wont come to the phone so we go there tp get it again still not fixed . we just cant believe this and the hot head wants to kick our a**. not that he could but again i think its the ink talking... so they have given up on it and now they they say they have orderd a new transmission to install in the car and they will call when they know more....still no car as of 4/19/14.
Aamco Transmission Reviews
THEY ARE A HUGE RIP OFF! THEY TELL YOU IT COSTS A CERTAIN PRICE TO GET YOUR CAR FIXED, NEXT THING YOU KNOW YOU PAY IT THEN THEY ASK FOR MORE MONEY!!! DO NOT USE AAMCO. JAMES IS A LIAR AND THEY ARE SCAMINNG PEOPLE OUT OF HARD EARNED MONEY. THEY TOLD ME IT WAS MY FLEX PLATE, I paid over $800 for that and then once I paid that he calls with another issue! They are full of s***.
Nov 2014 I had a bad experience with AAMCO TRANSMISSION located at 11612 N Florida Ave Tampa Fl. I do not recommend to no one, they switch there prices. Im going in with not bad transmission and I come out with the car doing nothing and changing my new battery to their old one. Plus based on Mr. Charles change the price from one to another with no warning. This company is prepared to rob the clients. Im not upset because they didnt fix it all, i really wanted was estimate is the rob they do to me, the amount I pay for checking the transmission was $589.00 dollars. I explain to Mr. Charles before you do anything, If the fix was goin to be more than $900.00 dollars, I said dont do it. Mr. Charles said based in his knowledge to fix transmission is no cost me more than that.After that day for 3 days no communication I had to call him, at the end my price was $ 2,224.00 dollars really. They insisting me to get a finance, I was really clear that it was no more than $900.00 dollars. I call coorporated and Mrs. MIchelle said she coulndt help me to remburse the money cause i sign the receipt. If I dont sign the won give me the car back. The mechanic when giving me the car felt so bad for me, and said sorry for me because of what they did to me. Even the mechanic new what was going on. Mr. Charles never gave me his face againg not that his word was any good anyway. I EXPECTED SOMETHING MORE PROFESSIONALISM FROM THIS COMPANY. Bad decision, MY ADVISE is NEVER EVER GO TO THERE. Bad place,service and non professional.
Hi, You probably don't know me but my name is Ted McFarland. I live in South Carolina and I just wanted to recount an event in my life that I think every consumer who owns a motor vehicle should at least be aware of.
I was recently traveling from south Florida back to my home in South Carolina and traveling on I95 through the Titusville area when I experienced transmission problems. Not being familiar with the area, I called an Aamco franchisee to check my vehicle out for me. Long story short, my vehicle was down for 2 weeks and it cost me about $2,700.00 for what was billed as a complete transmission rebuild with a 12 month 12,000 mile warranty.
I picked up my vehicle and was not 10 miles out of town back on I95 when all the same warnings began beeping and flashing. 'ABS' brake fail light, Check transmission warning and Transmission Overheating. Since I really wanted to get back home as I had had to drive a rental back down to Titusville to pick up the vehicle after the 2 week repair job I kept going and stopped at another Aamco franchisee in Jacksonville to have the transmission checked.
Yes, the transmission had to come back out and I would probably be down at least another 3-5 days. I asked if there was any chance that it would get me back home and was told that the slower I kept the speed the overheating problem would probably not be a problem and I continued on. Since the rest of my trip was on rural roads I figured I would be able to keep it around 45mph for the rest of the trip.
I did make it home and immediately contacted Aamco corporate to have them repair my vehicle under the warranty. However, since the nearest Aamco to me was some 50 miles away I asked that they tow the vehicle to their shop because otherwise I've got to have someone follow me over to drop it off and then again to pick it up. I explained that if the problem was a warranty problem that they should stand for the tow and if it wasn't that they could just bill it to me with the repair. They refused.
Well, two weeks later I was back down in the Ft Lauderdale area and my wife and I rented a car and drove over to another Aamco franchise. That franchisee just flat refused to take my vehicle in. On the way back from that trip the transmission went out again and I took it to a local transmission shop in my town and had it repaired.
However, I did get a report from the transmission shop that did the final repair as to what was the problem and here is what he told me. There is a sleeve type bearing that goes around the shaft just before the torgue converter. That sleeve has a hole in it by which the transmission fluid circulates from the transmission to the cooling lines in the radiator. That sleeve had been installed backwards and therefore the holes didn't line up and so my transmission had been running all of this time without any way to cool the hot fluid. Hence, all the warnings were a result of the fluid temperature in the transmission being very, very hot until it ultimately burned through all the seals again. Here are some things that I learned about the Aamco brand and I imagine this also applies to the Cottman brand as they are both owned under the same umbrella company. Despite what the sign says about them being 'expert' in car care, it just isn't so. There 'nationwide warranty' isn't worth the paper that it's printed on.
Here's what happened in my case. When I stopped in Jacksonville the technician test drove the car and then went immediately to his office before talking to me and called the other franchisee who had done the work. This seems perfectly normal and I thought he was just checking to see what all had been done and if he might have any idea why there was a problem, but that isn't really the purpose of that call. If the original franchisee doesn't agree to pay the 2nd repair shop for the work they are going to have to do - they won't get paid. So, the real purpose of that call is to say, hey, I got this vehicle in here and it looks like it may need warranty repair, are you going to reimburse me for it? This was how Mike Pekula of Aamco corporate explained it to me.
So, apparently the first time I took my vehicle in for a warranty claim the original franchisee was willing to pay for the repairs, but when I went to the second he refused. Same vehicle, same problem one day they'll fix it and the next day they won't. Surely anyone can see the problems with such a 'voluntary' repayment system to handle warranty claims.
Then when you try to get the Aamco corporate office involved they pretty much wash their hands of any liability and say it's got to be handled by the original franchisee that did the work. Their words to me were, "We can't tell our franchisee's what to do." So, here I am stuck with a worthless $2,700.00 repair job that neither the franchisee nor the corporate office will offer any help for.
My recommendation is that if there is any other reasonable option for getting transmission repair work done, and remember this 'nationwide warranty' works the same on all of their repaire, get it done somewhere else. Here are some sites one might want to peruse if considering Aamco or Cottman as a repair facility.
From October 2013 to May 2014 I had my transmission rebuilt 3 times from AAMCO and they all failed. When it started to fail for the 4th time I took it to another transmission repair shop and was told a part inside the trasnmission broke and that there was metal debris in the transmission oil so another rebuilt was performed and now it is working fine.
Every time the transmission failed I would have to pay a tow truck for which the company did not pay. They ripped me off with more that 3000.00 dollars
I brought my car there to get fixed with my transmission , long stoy short the had my car for more then 4 weeks and during those weeks I had picked it up and brought it back if not the day I picked it up or the next day and this went on and on . When I did get it back it worked for a few weeks and did the same things it was doing before , brought it to someone else they saw that the case was cracked beyond repair and that they just did a quick fix to make it work for the short time it did . Also my car could have blown up on me because of them . Then I couldn't find my work sheet from them so I went back to get it and they didn't even have t in the computer the macanic had to give the girl in the front a copy of what he did on a sticky note 15 min. later she plugged it into her computer while I was standing there and I had her write on the bottom that she did this while I was standing tere ad they had no record of it on file nor the payment that was in cash makes you wonder what he really does with the money when he dosen't even record it , I paid him also I have another station that is also in trouble with me for doing all this to begin with and I also have filed a lawsuite , the whole time just to have my car back and get it fixed right I had planed on suing the whole time and the transmission was also still under warranty when it broke down 9 months before , I had a 1 year warrantyh and not AAmco nor BB getty gas station gave me that either.
In all I shelled out 9,000 dollars , 2 transmissions from them andthe good one I have now that I didn't mindpaying for that one .I only should have had to pay for one transmission anyway , also I had a stroke when this was going on and Steve Grandinetti called me stupid and an idiot on the phone because I couldn't speek right from the stroke he is a very rude man and I have had a couple more strokes so it has taken me some time to get this all done but I am better now and everything is a go !! Stay away from this guy !!!
Four weeks ago, I took my car to have a free presure test because it was overheating. The car was running fine other than that. I told them that I wanted to have the water pump and the radiator replaced. I had already put a thermostat in the car. Four days later I called them and they told me they had bad news, that my transmission was leaking. I told them that I had just had it serviced and that it was working fine. I authorised the repair of the cooling system. A week later, I called them and asked about the car and they told me that they had pulled the transmission, and it needed a major overhaul... I asked well, how much is that going to cost? and they told me,they didnt know. Two weeks later, it still was not ready, and I asked how much the bill was going to be. The answer was unreal! $5155.93.... I said that I would have a hard time coming up with that kind of money, and Gary ,the service manager told me, "Don't worry. we have financing!". The financing company told me they would only cover $3000 of the bill, and I would have to come up with the rest... The financing rate was 31%! I have all of the previous invoices from when the car was repaired... and a statement from my regular mechanic stating that the car was fine two months ago... I later found out that this company is FAMOUS in legal circles... That the federal trade commission, and consumer fraud protection departments in just about every state have had complaints... I hope that there is an attorney out there that wants to get into a CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT to shut these people down forever!!! There are thousands of unhappy customers, that have taken their vehicles to them for other reasons, and had their transmissions taken out of the car. Then not given a proper estimate, until the work has already been done. DO NOT TAKE YOUR CAR TO AAMCO TRANSMISSION!! They have been doing the same thing to tens of thousand of people for over 35 years.
Four weeks ago, I took my car to have a free presure test because it was overheating. The car was running fine other than that. I told them that I wanted to have the water pump and the radiator replaced. I had already put a thermostat in the car. Four days later I called them and they told me they had bad news, that my transmission was leaking. I told them that I had just had it serviced and that it was working fine. I authorised the repair of the cooling system. A week later, I called them and asked about the car and they told me that they had pulled the transmission, and it needed a major overhaul... I asked well, how much is that going to cost? and they told me,they didnt know. Two weeks later, it still was not ready, and I asked how much the bill was going to be. The answer was unreal! $5155.93.... I said that I would have a hard time coming up with that kind of money, and Gary ,the service manager told me, "Don't worry... we have financing!". The financing company told me they would only cover $3000 of the bill, and I would have to come up with the rest... The financing rate was 31%! I have all of the previous invoices from when the car was repaired... and a statement from my regular mechanic stating that the car was fine two months ago... I later found out that this company is FAMOUS in legal circles... That the federal trade commission, and consumer fraud protection departments in just about every state have had complaints... I hope that there is an attorney out there that wants to get into a CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT to shut these people down forever!!! There are thousands of unhappy customers, that have taken their vehicles to them for other reasons, and had their transmissions taken out of the car. Then not given a proper estimate, until the work has already been done. DO NOT TAKE YOUR CAR TO AAMCO TRANSMISSION!! They have been doing the same thing to tens of thousand of people for over 35 years.
My son and i took his transmission to aamco lakewood store. at first the price was under 1000.00 then it went to 1800.00 once it was out of the car that was a nice trick ok then lets fix this thing right do the whole thing ...replace everything right wrong... you just pay for that. they put a few new parts in it and said come get,the car went 5 miles and was burnt up so back it went they were mad it some how was our falt ..2 weeks later itsfixed again ok about time well it went about4 miles really... back it goes now the big hot head at the desk is really being a jerk to us hes not going to fix it again he says it must be the computer so we are like well is it or not you should shoud know not us...i think his ink went in a little to deep.. so then they dont know and he says you have to take it to the dealer to have the computer checked you pay ...
so off to the dealer it goes they hook it up and start laughing about the aamco tecs. the draler says the computer is fine and the transmission is sliping in first and second and it needs to be rebuilt again o man i cant belive this... so back it goes they are really mad at us now. we were told to pick it up in one week ok . we go to get it buy now we know to just call but they wont come to the phone so we go there tp get it again still not fixed . we just cant believe this and the hot head wants to kick our a**. not that he could but again i think its the ink talking... so they have given up on it and now they they say they have orderd a new transmission to install in the car and they will call when they know more....still no car as of 4/19/14.