Ok 2 different shops. First issue from 3/19 post, I was driving on the freeway and the car stopped shifting. I took it to Aamco because I was on work comp and had limited income, they replaced the spring on the valve body side of the transmission, they also for some reason removed the kickdown linkage spring assembly.
I drove the car for a few days, took it back to Aamco told them something was wrong, shifting really high 2nd to 3rd at 55-60mph under casual conditions and was slapping into gear. They said they "adjusted it" 3 weeks later I came back to Aamco again, and told them same issues, spoke with the transmission repair from Aamco, which is when he told me he removed the linkage spring cause it didn't look someone else's car mopar that was in the their shop. I came back again, now 3 moths and 1800 miles later, They told me they weren't equip to fix my problem and that I should take it to another shop. So I saved up some cash, and took it to a friends performance shop, and he said I need to have the transmission rebuilt, so I took it to a different transmission shop , and they pulled the pan where we found the band and part of a clutch sitting in the pan. That shop rebuilt it and added a shift kit, it has been perfect since. I am suing Aamco for failing to perform a proper repair, and for causing increased damage to my transmission by removing the kickdown.
Based on the full description, am I correct in assuming the removal of the kickdown caused my transmission to fail.
More likely the trans was eating itself when you first took it in, and they removed the TP rod spring to get the pressures up to make it last a little longer (Which caused it to shift late and hard)
What Aamco
should have done was pull the pan, seen the destruction in progress and recommended a full rebuild.
Sounds like they kind of just sent you down the road, but they shouldn't have charged you anything if they did.
Removing the TP return spring will not destroy a good trans, but will make it shift late and harder due to the TP valve not being returned to the idle position. (This is why I think they took it off, to make up for it getting weak)
I don't think you will get anywhere suing them for the trans damage, but maybe reimbursed if you paid them anything for what they did.
I used to work for Aamco as a builder/service writer and I can tell you how it would have been handled in
my shop.
It would have had the fluid checked and a test drive done.
If it seemed like it worked ok the pan would have been taken down and the contents evaluated.
If there were abnormal contents in the pan, I would recommed a teardown for inspection.
Upon seeing exessive clutch material wear you would have been told that it needed a full rebuild including a new converter, and the cooling lines flushed.
At that point if you refused the rebuild it would have been slapped back together and sent down the road at no charge.
And just a little company internal secret,,,, If you were shown the damage to the trans and said you thought you could fix it yourself, it would very likely get reassembled with red locktite on all the belhousing and converter bolts and get put back in tighter than hell.
Company policy was, even if you refused the rebuild it had to get put back together working
no worse than it did when it was brought in.
That meant we had to put good parts in sometimes just to get it out of the shop and down the road.
We NEVER dissasembled a trans for inspection and let it leave that way.
It ALWAYS was reassembled and put back in the car before the customer could take it.
Point is, they shouldn't have touched it at all unless they were willing to inspect it internally.
If they charged you for what they did, then you might have a chance of getting that back.
They will say "He told us he couldn't afford to have it rebuilt, so we just tried to get him by for awhile"
Which is actually a no no, as company policy is that you do it all and do it right, or don't do it at all.
My personal oppinion, is that you will lose if you try to claim they caused the damage that required it to be rebuilt.
