AAMCO Transmissions & Total Car Care at 968 East Arrow Highway, Covina, California.

I'm not one to go out of my way to write up complaints unless needed, but this calls for it.

1) Cost
From day 1, the manager, Jim, told us they are 30% cheaper than the dealership price with a free evaluation. We were very pleased with the things he had to say on the phone, so we decided to go ahead and have them work on my car. After they diagnosed it, found out it was an $800 charge, whereas Ford's price was $125. The price we got from Ford was about $4,000 for a new transmission including labor and all. Jim told us it would be between $1500-$2500. Later in the week, he changed his answer to $3800 for the final price. I couldn't take it to Ford where I would've rather taken it back to because I was apparently down $800 regardless, so we stayed with not much of a choice.

2) Rental/charge
The first thing he told us was the rentals were free. Another time, told us only the $25 rental was free (a Fiat). We had the "upgraded" car that was $40 so he said he'd take off $25 off each day. Great! When I was picking up my car, I found out he had tacked on all the charges on top of the original price he gave us. The whole cost of this entire thing was about $4500. The "discounted" price should have been off the $3800 total that he gave us. He failed to provide us with those details. Not only was that inching toward one grand more than his original price, his quote of "30% cheaper than the dealership price" was invalid.

3) Timeframe/duration
Day one, he told us it would be 3-5 days until I have my car back. We had it towed over there on Tuesday and told us they would call us Friday and again, changed his answer to 5-7 days. That following Monday, he calls and tells us that they barely took it apart and gave us the cost. He then told us it should be ready Wednesday. Wednesday comes and they test drove it and it jolted when changing gears so they had to work on it and would be ready Thursday. Thursday comes, nothing. Finally got my car back today (Saturday) with no communication in between.

Overall, we will not be doing business with them again. We don't work with shady liars and will be contacting the headquarters about all of this. The lack of communication is very unprofessional. The fact that he tacked on money we weren't aware of is very unprofessional. We were taken advantage of and it ruined the entire company for us. I hope you're proud, Jim.

Jim who works there is really nice, explains things to you, he helped me get financed for a transmission.