I'm in one of those 'what was I thinking when I brought the car here?' situations. Back in March we were bringing our '88 240 DL in for service on the throttle body & IAC, when the overdrive stopped working en route. I asked them to check it over, especially the kickdown cable, relay (which I said I thought was ok) and wiring. Two days later were told that 'The overdrive unit has failed' and that we needed a rebuilt transmission installed for about $3100.00. Yeah, right. I took the car home, did some research, and it seemed clear that it was the O/D
*solenoid*, not the actual O/D unit (thanks to those here who helped with that). I got the part for $80, and brought the car to an independent Volvo/Saab shop to have it installed. They did so, and that solved the problem (along with replacing a frayed length of wiring). Total cost: slightly under $300.00. That wasn't the end, however...The Indie shop found that the left hood hinge was broken, and the kickdown cable O-ring was leaking fluid. Since I hadn't opened the hood myself, I brought the car back to Nemith, explained the situation, noted the 10X inflated repair estimate, and asked them to replace the hinge, O-ring and pan gasket. I offered to pay for the parts. The service manager wrote down what was wrong, told me to leave the car, and gave every impression that they'd fix those two problems. We have had services performed there over the last six years, including a power flush last August (minor screwups, but nothing major) and I really thought that they were going to make this right.
Wrong. First I got a message from the same service manager saying that they would NOT be performing any "free repairs" on the car, but would give an estimate if I liked. His boss offered to refund the $39.50 we had been charged for the estimate, but said that they wouldn't even have looked at the lower cable end, or the transmission at all. Apparently $39.50 gets you a quick look at the throttle cable connection, and they click the O/D button a few times, nothing more, but on this they said I needed a $3100 rebuilt transmission. Or they DID look at the cable, and managed to bend it enough to make the O-ring fail. HIS boss backed him up. He further said that when they gave a diagnosis, I could choose whether or not to have the repair made, and they had no responsibility for the accuracy. At one point in our increasingly heated conversation he stated that 'It might be more fun to let you sue us' to get the estimate refund.
So, after nearly causing us to give the car to charity because of a misdiagnosed transmission 'failure', Nemith would rather have complaints filed against them with the state Attorney General and Better Business Bureau than do work that would cost them about $100 in actual labor. I got the impression that this won't be the first complaint filed against them, and they essentially don't care. Let my misfortune be a warning to other people in my area...