Just my two cents here:
I recently had a tranny die in my Ford Exploder.............on vacation,
two days before I was supposed to be heading home, about 10 hours of
driving..........
The LOCAL garage in Nags Head basically said it would be about $2500 and
take almost a week by the time a unit was built for me (out of town),
shipped in and installed..........
I called AAMCO in Norfolk, VA and found one on their shelf......they
trucked the Explorer up to them (about a 3 hour trip) and we went and
picked it up later that same night.........
I ALSO dealt with a tranny rebuild (well, the overdrive/transfer case
rebuild at least in my 92 V8 Dak....same deal....OD gears were trash, etc
etc...........Dealer did that one under the 7/70 warranty......the cost for
the rebuild (NOT THE WHOLE TRANNY MIND YOU) was listed on the invlice at
almost $2700..........!!!!!!
So, the price AAMCO gave you, to be honest, isnt suprising..........
The "base" price assumes that the tranny they swap out for the rebuilt unit
you get is ok as far as the heard parts go.....i.e. the seals, etc can be
bad, but the gears and such have to be solid........ANd, unfortunately for
most folks that blow a tranny, SOME hard parts are usually dead due to the
fact that the tranny blew and wasn;t caught until too late, like my
Explorer.....The hard parts are REALLY expensive...............
SO, while it DOES hurt (I'll be paying the Explorer's tranny off for a
while), it's not suprising...........
The days of a cheap $600-$1000 rebuild are over, methinks.............
At 07:20 PM 3/9/01 -0800, you wrote:
>Tom,
>
>You know they're going to charge you for everything they've done so far.
>You can buy a new one from Mopar Performance for $1,600.00.
>
>Ron
>00 PB SLT QC 4X2 5.9 46RE 3.92 LSD
>For modifications see my DML Profile (URL follows)
>http://www.twistedbits.net/WWWProfile/dakota/Kw9pV1EkFeOYY
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: owner-dakota-truck@BUFFNET.NET
>[mailto:owner-dakota-truck@BUFFNET.NET]On Behalf Of Tom (Silver89)
>Sent: Friday, March 09, 2001 3:46 PM
>To: dakota-truck-moderator@bent.twistedbits.net
>Subject: DML: Aamco Trans Ripped Me Off (long)
>
>
>Hi everyone - I need input - heres the story
>
>About a year ago I started having trans problems - they kept getting
>worse - but because I could still drive it in the city with minimal
>trouble I figured I would wait.
>
>Well now I need it for a road trip and I go to get the trans taken care
>of. I take it to a shop where I know the guys well - and he has a 96 3
>speed auto w/od. 800 bucks installed - used trans. says its solid.
>But he comes back and says the 96 wont work with my 89. I asked a
>couple DMLers and they said it would. Well the guy at the shop says
>hes working ona couple cars now with trans problems. To stop by later
>on. Well this past Tuesday the 6th, I decided I want going to wait -
>and I took it to an Aamco - just for an estimate. They said it would be
>$969 for a basic rebuild. Not including anything else. I thought it
>was a fair price so I said go ahead with it Today they get back to me
>and say the overdrive gears and everything need to be replaced. I knew
>the overdrive was bad - but he originally told me that the overdrive may
>still be good. And told me somthing along the lines of that there was
>possibly some other reason why the overdrive was not working. Oh yeah
>- the symptoms were reverse gear slipping and making grindng sounds...
>and the over drive would not work - it was for a time, lurching whenever
>it went into OD as if it wasnt getting any power from the engine all of
>a sudden. And then just recently it klunked and it was grinding - but I
>could still accelorate. (I was driving with the OD turned off every
>time I drove it)
>
>Now they said that to get new overdrive - it would cost 1$800 - to have
>them rebuild it would cost $1125. That would be in ADDITION to the
>$969 basic rebuild, plus about $229 for a torque conv. The grand total
>would be $2386.75
>
>Well I'm not an expert with transmissions - but I knew this was wrong.
>And so far everyone I have talked to - including the shop where I was
>originally going to take it... has said they are taking me to the
>cleaners.
>
>I need opinions here... I need to know what course of action to take
>next.
>
>Oh I left out some important detail. I called aamco - and told them that
>the people I have talked with say its way too much. I said I'm not sure
>I want you guys to finish the job. He says - well I'm not sure I want
>to finish it! I said back well thats a real nice attitude to have with
>your customers! I told him it was nothing personal - but I have to
>look out for myself here. he was going on and on about how he could
>use parts from Tiewan and stuff like tha - but they yse quality parts,
>they have to pay higher prices for parts - the over drive parts are
>expecive - somthing about the plantery gear... UGH
>
>What the devil do I do????
>
>--
>-------------------------------------------------------------
>"She has a face that would make an onion cry"
>
>Tom S.
>http://members.aol.com/silvereightynine
>Site Updated - on 2/5/01
>1989,V6,Auto,8 footer,4x2
>1989,V6,Auto,8 footer,4x4 w/snowplow (woohoo!!)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:00:06 EDT