Cottman Transmission and Total Auto Care #3500

To Whom It My Concern:
*** *** brought his Honda Accord
in to have
us work on the transmission. He gave us
authorization to begin the work on Tuesday,
December 1, 2015. We did
unfortunately have a problem with one of our lifts and that did put us back a
bit. We also had about transmissions
in front of his leftover from last week that we were working on. I understand that the customers father,
***, called the shop and talked to our Center Manager, ***, and they had
a heated discussion. I understand that
*** called *** some names, threatened to have him arrested if he came to
the shop, and said he would charge storage fees of $40/day if he didn’t come
get the car. I spoke with *** and
apologized for ***’s behavior as he is a newer manager and I do not condone
such behavior at my shop. I assured him
and his wife that we would not have him arrested and storage fees would not
apply. I also apologized for the
behavior and for the vehicle taking longer than expected and took another
$off the bill for their inconvenience.
The final bill came out to be $2,280.67.
I did have my builder come in Saturday and tear down the transmission
and when he did we found a part that had to be matched up with the parts store
because there were multiple variations of the part and we wanted to make sure
we got the right one. Because of this we
were not able to get back to the customer with the final price until midday
Monday. I had hoped we would get the
vehicle back to the customer on Tuesday, but it did take until Wednesday to
complete which I informed the customer of on Tuesday. I know that the customers parents think I was
putting them off and not being honest, but I really did the best I could. Rebuilding a transmission is a very big job
and sometimes everything doesn’t go as smooth as we would hope. I try to work with customers that best that I
can and I guess this one got a little out of hand. When *** and his father came to pick up
the vehicle I delivered it to them personally.
I apologized to them again and got them checked out. I asked *** how *** had treated him
since I know *** and *** didn’t get along and *** said ***
treated him OK. He just said he was a
little frustrated that it took that long and that *** hadn’t done a good
job of keeping in touch with him. I
thanked him for his feedback and shook his hand. I told them that if they had any other issues
to contact me directly.This is a response that we have made on other websites as well regarding the ***'s complaints:12/11/
Dear ***, It saddens
me to learn you are still disappointed in us, following the completion
of your son's vehicleWhen he picked up his car, it seemed he was happy
with my attempts to make up for the missteps in communication, and the
confusion that you encountered while speaking with one of my team
membersPlease know that the behavior you describe is not condoned or
tolerated by me, the owner, and your complete satisfaction has been my
goal since I began working with your sonBecause of this, we did reduce
the amount on your son's initial invoiceAgain, your trust and
satisfaction matters, and if there is any way I can better achieve this,
please email me at ***Respectfully, ***

I want to begin by
reiterating that I do not tolerate the kind of behavior that *** described in
his response about the way that our manager treated him before I became
involved. I also want to let you know
that this employee is no longer employed by Cottman. Quality customer service, and earning the
trust of my guests is of paramount importance to me, and I hope that he will
email *** with any further suggestions on how I can
improve moving forward
I have spoken to or
communicated with our customer *** about this situation as well as his
parents, *** and ***. When the
vehicle was ready to be picked up, I called *** to let him know it was
done and gave him the final price of the job after the additional discount I took off of the ticket due to the repair taking longer than expected.
When they came to pick up the vehicle, they thought it was going to be
about $less than I told ***.
As this was not a really big deal, I told the customer I would cover the
difference. The only reason I didn’t
change the ticket was because the customer was financing part of the repairs
and the financing papers have to have the exact amount of the repair
listed. At that point in the day, the
finance company was already closed and I didn’t want the customers to have to
wait until the next day to pick up their vehicle. This in no way effected their loan or their
payments to the loan company
There are some
accusations in the response from *** that are not accurate such as
the drinking of beer at the shop which I already explained to the customer did
not happen and that my manager did drink iced tea that came in a big white can
that might have been mistaken for a beer
When the customers
came to pick up their vehicle I personally delivered it to them. My technicians had mentioned that there
appeared to be one or more motor oil leaks and that it looked like one of the
leaks was coming from the valve cover gasket.
My technicians added a little motor oil so as not to damage the engine
when they went on their road test. I
also mentioned to the customer that they may want to get this looked at. This had nothing to do with the transmission
that we had rebuilt for the customer, but we wanted to let them know about the
leak as a customer courtesy

[To assist us in bringing this matter to a close, you must give us a reason why you are rejecting the response. If no reason is received your complaint will be closed Administratively Resolved]
Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because: The car was dropped off Monday 11/30 not Tuesday. [redacted] informed me and my son that evening while we were there that it would only take 3-4 days for the car to be finished and that the price would be between $1800-$2400. My son could not qualify for the 180 days SAC loan on his own so when I came to pick him up from dropping the car off I co-signed the loan. [redacted] sent the paperwork in right then in fact the loan officer called back before we left to ask some questions about the loan application. [redacted] apparently got tired of waiting after 15 minutes or so and went into the shop to have a beer with the other shop mechanics while we were waiting for the answer back. After about 15 more minutes I called for [redacted] to tell him we would have to leave because we had to get to the rental car location before they closed Monday night. I told him to not wait on the answer from the loan company that I had the money in the bank to pay whatever it took I just didn't want to use it. I made no further contact with the shop until Friday when my son informed me that the car was on the rack and that it had had the transmission out since Wednesday. I talked to [redacted] on Friday about why the transmission had not been at least opened up so that we could get a price since the car had been there since Monday and we still didn't know how much. I asked him the same question 4 times and he blew up at me but never gave me an answer. I asked to speak with [redacted] but he hung up on me. I went to the shop after this to have a conversation with [redacted] about the situation. He acted very coy and non caring based on his body language towards me and the fact he was only responding with one word answers. At this point [redacted] who was behind us blew up because of something I said about him and his lack of business etiquette. He told me to get the car out of his shop because neither him nor his mechanic's were going to work on it. I told [redacted] "Do you see what I have been putting up with and who has been yelling at who". I then told him I was going call the Revdex.com and post stuff on social media websites. At this point he finally changed his attitude and told me that I did not have to take my car from his shop (but I probably should have at this point). He told me that he would get with the head mechanic and get a better timeline and would call back in 1 hour. This was the only thing that he was truthful about in this whole situation since he called me in 45 minutes. he told me that the mechanic would get it tore down the next day and that [redacted] would work up a parts list first thing Monday and call my son with a price and that the car would be done by Tuesday. None of this happened they didn't call my son he called them around 11:30 that morning only to find out the quote still wasn't ready, so he had to finish it then call him back. He finished the quote and tells him that the price was going to be $2500 and that he already gave him $300 in discounts to get to that price. My son text me at work and told me and I told him to call back and inform him of the original agreement and that we were not going to pay more then that. He told him he would drop it to $2396.07.  My son did not text me until about noon with this latest quote but I was unable to get back to him until about 12:45pm which is when he called them back and told them ok. In [redacted]'s response he claims they had to wait on matching a part on Monday in order to finish working on it the real reason was [redacted] did not fill out the quote first thing Monday and call my son like he was supposed to. So Tuesday the car is supposed to be done we hadn't been told any different so my son went to pick it up and was told they didn't have it built yet. I talked to [redacted] to ask him Tuesday evening why it wasn't done and he blew up at me again telling me that I must think that I am the only person in the world that thought I was important enough to have their car worked on. He then said that I was not welcome on his premises and that if I showed up he would call 911 and have me thrown in the county jail so he could come and watch me eat lunch from behind bars. When we went to get the car he tried to make me pay the $2280 figure however I showed him the texts that he had been having with my wife that showed the $2396.07 original price and that he took $120 off that would be $2276.07 which is what I told him was all I would pay. He reluctantly agreed to the $2276.07 price however he said he was not going to change the statement nor the loan paperwork because he did not want to take the time to re-write the statement nor re-write the loan papers and submit them again. I am not sure if I should file a new complaint or tack onto this one, but Saturday my son was planning to change his oil at my house. He checked the fluid level on the dipstick and thought that it was odd that it looked like it had newer looking oil on it like somebody had just put oil in the motor recently and that it was several quarts over the high mark on the dipstick. We then remembered something [redacted] had mentioned Wednesday night when we picked it up that his mechanics noticed an oil leak in the rear main seal and the valve cover gasket. Also he informed us that the axle was going to fail soon. He gave us none of this in writing and it is his word against ours I understand this but there was three of us to his one (my son's fiancé was with us). I have had Auto Mechanic's in Vocational school many years ago and normally do a lot of my own work so I know all of this information. I did investigate the valve cover and did not see any leaks anywhere I asked my son if he ever sees any spots of oil on the ground when he parks his car at home, he told me no. We drained the oil from the car and 8 quarts came out of the motor, you calculate that with the 1 quart or so that remains in the filter that means that there was around 9 total quarts of oil in the car. As a result of all the issues we had with the shop, combined with what we were told by [redacted] the night we picked it up and the fact that the car was in there possession for 9 days just prior to that, we believe they intentionally added excessive oil to the motor with the intent to have the seals blow on the motor and we are now concerned about the axle. We have attempted to message [redacted] a few times already but have gotten no response from him as of yet.
Regards,
[redacted]

[To assist us in bringing this matter to a close, you must give us a reason why you are rejecting the response. If no reason is received your complaint will be closed Administratively Resolved]
Complaint: [redacted]
I am rejecting this response because:The part about the beer is still incorrect, I can read. While most of the story was correct about the paperwork, why did you tell me you would call them to straighten out the difference of the $4. It was around 5:15pm when we showed up to pick the car up, a week and a half earlier when we dropped the car off the person at the finance company called [redacted] at six to ask questions. She then called me around 6:30 to finish the papers. Can you explain that if they were closed already by then?While I already knew you added oil to the vehicle due to the fact it had been in your possession for the previous week and a half. You say the mechanic put two quarts of oil in the motor because he noticed what he thought was a leak from the valve cover. I ask did they check the actual oil level on the dipstick, which is the standard practice in the engine repair industry (yours is supposedly transmissions)? Because had they actually done that they would have known it was already full. Besides all of this I noticed no explanation as to why you never attempted to contact my wife back when she messaged you, it clearly showed on her account it was delivered to you, as well as my son said he called your cell phone and left a couple of voicemails a couple of times too at the first of the week in regards to this matter, but when questioned on this forum for the Revdex.com you immediately had answer. So I ask why didn't you answer us when we asked you?
Regards,
[redacted]