manufacturer rebuilt vs indy rebuilt transmission

Stevie-boy, where in the hell have I ever said I am on my third transmission? Stop responding with conjecture and get some facts before you spew out your blathering drivel. Fact: my T&C has almost 186,000 miles on it. I had to replace the tranny at 117,700 miles as it wore out. Mind you this was after daily Los Angeles freeway commuter traffic, towing a large (loaded) Coleman camping trailer (as well as a fully loaded van with a family of four and four bicycles) to Yosemite and back twice (each time in August, when it isn't really cool) and back, as well as to Yellowstone and back (in August), plus an overloaded 6x12 U Haul trailer (it was so loaded that the leveling system was unable to keep the van level) from Dayton, OH to Indianapolis (and then back to Dayton) and then on home to Los Angeles (again in August). When the tranny crapped out it didn't surprise me one bit. That was over 68,000 miles and three years ago. The van has NOT been repeatedly dropped off for major work on the tranny since but it did go in for a bad fuel sending unit a year ago. How have I repeatedly thrown money away???????? How much did you pay for your "locally-rebuilt 3-month warranteed 42LE rebuild is going strong with 80k miles on it" (direct quote) and how long was it in the shop? I paid $2,199 OTD and had the van back in one day. Care to enlighten us with anything else???????

But many of us use the easiest option because:

Jerk.

A sample set of one doesn't build a good statistical argument. I never said that you CANNOT get a good unit from from the dealer's mass-rebuilding sweatshops. But the ODDS are against it- just read this newsgroup for a few years. Just like the odds are always in favor of the house winning at a Vegas casino.

What do you DO with that whole hour that's so valuable?

What percentage of your time do you think it REALLY takes? An hour or two of phone calls every 10 years or so is too invasive for you? That's all it took me.

If you REALLY only own 1 car, then I suppose thats a valid excuse, although (potentially) a whole lot more expensive in the long run than calling Enterprise and renting a car for a couple of days in order to have the job done right.

Translation: "I can't be bothered with thinking long-term."

If YOU only spend one hour searching locally you have spent NO TIME whatsoever trying to find a shop that meets all of the criteria you have been advocating.

and continued:

Sorry, Charley, I mean Stevie-boy, an hour or two on the phone is no reasearch and AWS! If I am going to do research I am going to visit each shop on my list to see, personally, what makes them the one I am going to choose.

and further stated:

I have a car, my wife has a car. We BOTH are fund-raising professionals. We BOTH need our vehicles every day. I am NOT going to shell out money to Enterprise for a couple of days - usually more - to make the repair even MORE costly...and now you are stating that the course of action I took for the replacement of the transmission resulted in the job not being done right????????? Yup, over 68,000 miles and more than three years since it was done and you say I chose the wrong way.

and finished:

I DID think long-term and my choice was the correct choice - "YCITPM - ICTPB"!!!

.........and now you resort to name-calling!!! Hmmmmm, seems as though you are guilty of calling me what you have proven is a title better suited for you. No, on second thought, that word is to mild, clean and respectful for what you really are.

and further stated:

I have been here for many, many years and I don't bother with statistics from here - as those who don't complain very rarely visit here - let alone even know this newsgroup exists.

and finished:

I don't bother with Vegas - but if you give me the name of a good, local transmission shop located there I will keep that in mind if I I need one.

You must be clairvoyant if you can determine the competence of a transmimssion shop via a phone call. Do you select your surgeon that same way?

Matt

If you take longer than an hour you don't know how to use the phone. Or don't know how to ask, "Do you do your own in-house rebuilds on Chrysler

Then you go visit the shop, have a look around, talk to the manager and confirm the phone conversation. The 5th shop I called gave me a lengthy, detailed description of exactly what upgrades they've found to be the best, and what assembly procedures give the lowest come-backs. Not a lentghy process at all. The first 3 said, "No, that transmission is 'too complicated,' we buy them from the dealer" and got an immediate hang-up from me. The other one couldn't (or wouldn't) tell me what fixes they apply to the known probems.

Nope, just gotta know the right questions to ask. That narrows it down to the point that visiting no more than 1-2 shops is necessary.

My car and my family's safety is worth it to me. A "lifetime warranty" doesn't do my wife any good if the POS assembly-line rebuild has a meltdown 100 miles from the nearest dealer, or in a bad part of town late at night, or during a winter storm....

And you believe that the unscrupulous shops will tell you the truth about what they do. Give me a call, I've got some real estate to sell you. The biggest fiasco I ever had with a vehicle was a private shop that I hired to make a ring & pinion swap in my Chevy pickup. I asked around and got a good recommendation from a friend who is a auto enthusiast. I called the guy and asked him questions about r&p setup, how many he'd changed and set up, etc. He certainly sounded like he knew what he was doing. Well, 30 days later, at a cost of twice what he quoted me, I had a truck with a very noisy rear r&p that ran very hot. The guy told me that he had it apart "several times" and that was the best he could get it, even with no shims on the pinion.

I took it to the local GM dealer who fixed it in a morning. Turns out what the "independent" mechanic had missed is that GM went to a "machined to fit" shim a few years back rather than using standard shim packs. This guy mistook the "shim" for a spacer and was adding shims to the spacer that was already the right size for the original setup and too large for the new pinion. So even when he used no shims, he was using a very thick shim. Unless you were an expert on GM rear ends, you'd have never know to ask him a question like this. So, Einstein, tell me how you would have detected this missing piece of key data during a phone screen ... or even a visit to the shop?

Matt

....and wants to continue this pissing contest. Stevie-boy, you AWS and I see no need to continue. You feel you know all of the answers and your way is the only way. Guess what? YOU'RE WRONG!!!!!!!!! Bye!

The only problem with this is that I as a consumer probably don't know the answers to the questions or even what parts are in a transmission so they could make up anything to tell me and I wouldn't have a clue if I was getting the run around or being told the truth.

Even if the rebuild from Chrysler turned out to be junk its easier to spend those kind of bucks knowing you have the dealer network and financial resources of Chrysler staning behind it. Probably all of us here have had to give up on a mechanic or dealer and take a car somewhere else to be repaired at some point in time and not many of us can stand to take the financial hit of a bad rebuild from a bad shop.

All in all I agree that the independant can do a better job for a better price but being in the average consumers shoes of not knowing a good transmission person and not knowing how a transmission works I would probably also go back to the security of Ma Mopar.

This is another case where building a good relationship with an independant mechanic can help out. If I don't know beans about a transmission but my mechanic Joe does and he says XYZ company is the best place in town to go then I am ahead of the game.

Steve B.

Of course not, which is why you ask questions and VISIT the shop to see what's going on.

You think all dealers that slap in shoddy mass-reman units are truthful either? We all already know that holding dealer service departments accountable on behalf of the customer is one of Chrysler's biggest problems in the marketplace, you actually think it would be WORSE out among the mom-and-pop shops?

?? Again, in English this time?

Pot, Kettle, Black.

Suit yerself. Its not my money you're spending.

And you see no need to educate yourself a little to protect yourself? To quote another poster on this thread, "Do you choose a surgeon" without learning a little bit about the disease you've got?

It's up to you to educate yourself. If you choose not to do so, then the consequences (in terms of money and/or hassle) you suffer later are your own fault.

Actually, my experience is that it is worse among mom and pop shops as compared to my local Chrysler dealer.

Matt

If you are having a heart attack are you going to stop and spend a day learning about heart disease or call 911?

If you break your leg are you going to rent a walker and go to different hospitals to see how they would fix it or are you going to go to an emergency room?

I agree with you that it would be better if people knew enough to make informed decisions. I was recently facing the same issue on my '59 and decided to rebuild the transmission myself... Who know how its going to turn out but so far so good. The realistic side of this though is that people just dont have time to go learn what they need to know and if they do have time things mechanical are so foreign to them that they wont learn enough to make sense of it.

Steve B.

Okay - "and wants to continue this pissing contest. Stevie-boy, you AWS" - Ain't Worth Shit!

and continued:

Far, far from it.

Money was spent - over three years ago, for a quality, rebuilt unit from a Dodge dealer. The warranty was longer, it is continuing to stand the test of time, it was done in one day, and I paid less than you did for yours. You and Danile can continue to generalize all you want to with your "mass-produced, sweat-shop produced" diatribe. I have merely pointed out that you are wrong to generalize but never once have I said "my way is the only way".