Matts94Z28

iTrader: (6)

I also worked for a dealership (hendrick) and witnessed people like this daily. Why the hell would anyone go out and abuse a stock WS6 over something like a C6 ZO6? Everyone want's something for free now days. I doubt you will see a dime out of this lawsuit.

gold98Z28

iTrader: (7)

yeah, i hate people who are sue happy *ucks. as if there is something they could do to tear it up that fast. if your trans couldnt handle a good floggin(even if they were) then it was **** to begin with. most likely from overheating it. good luck chuck. i hope you loose and be out attorney money also.

87silverbullet

iTrader: (11)

Also, in the OP never did they say they tried to give the dealership a chance to rectify the problem they went straight to a lawyer. If I broke a car in my shop I would hope the owner would give me a chance to fix the problem before going to a lawyer on me.

The Dragon

iTrader: (6)

I don't have to give details about the impending case OR anyones eye witness testimonials; but you don't seem like a d!(k. Rather your query sounds genuine.

So I'll answer you and be done with the other whiny trolls that have no pertinence to the thread.

There was discussion at length with the service writer and dealer representatives in question before ANY mention of litigation. We were told it would cost more than $1000 dollars to diagnose the problem eg. Pull tranny and tear it apart. Then the rebuild or replacement parts would add to the bill (He!! . . . even swapping a tranny would run a minimum of $900 labor alone . . . they were unwilling to make ANY attempt at a mutually reasonable resolution).

Their excuse was that it was "expected" of a stock tranny with that many miles to fail. When I informed them that the tranny was not stock but fairly new and had 0 issues in the time we've had it with very low miles they had nothing to refute.

I wasn't about to get roped into a $2000-3000 estimated tranny bill from a dealer known for similar issues locally (this we are learning from other dealerships in the area and other cases filed against them as well as from employees currently working at said dealership).

Given the numbers the dealer was throwing at me and the $950 price Frank charged me for a completely replaced transmission, the decision was simple (not to mention the fact that Frank offered to do the full diagnosis, complete with photographic documentation of the internal parts, at no extra cost).

The transmission failure is going to be diagnosed by the company from which it was purchased; Performabuilt. If the failure lies with their product then so be it. I will change the thread title, and focus of the thread, at such time. A transmission advertised to handle 700 rwhp should have no problem with less than HALF as much power on a mostly stock LS1; period.

If it is determined that abuse of some sort was the culprit; those findings and documentation will be forwarded to our attorney's office and action will be taken accordingly.

87silverbullet

iTrader: (11)

Ok that sounds a little better. It is dumb of them to even try to make you pay fully when they had the car in their possession. At my shop the 50/50 responsibility/paying rule works 9 out of 10 times. If it is completely my fault I own up to it but if it could be the customer has something that is old and could fail and does in ny posession I tell the customer to pay for the parts and I will eat the labor and they take that and run usually. In your case all they can do is order you a transmission from Frank and install it for free.

built408

iTrader: (10)

The first thing you did was blame the dealership why??? Wouldn't the responsible thing is to have performabuilt diagnose the problem and try to find the point or reason of failure??? NO, you all of a suden jump to the conclusion that the dealership screwed you, and you made this thread to try to get people on your side.

The Dragon

iTrader: (6)

They absolutely refuse to offer even a minor labor discount on the labor. I would have been fine with paying for more than half the labor.

As for continued ignorant and uneducated responses by others; learn how to read and comprehend.

Also ... Back on current topic. Frank ... Any update?

TT632

iTrader: (3)

water pump bad=compromised cooling system=transmission overheating. Sounds plausable.

Chace02ws6

iTrader: (10)

I can understand where this guys coming from, If any of us took our car in for any problem other that the tranny in this case, And you get back to pick up your car and you hear that now your tranny's blown... and oh, by the way it happened when the tech was driving it. I mean come on anyboby that has responded to this thread is going to think the same way this guy is thinking. I'm not blaming the tech, But it just doesn't look good having it blow while he drives it. Even if the parts are defective, IT STILL DOESN'T LOOK GOOD.

performabuilt

iTrader: (25)

Yes the trans arrived about 20 minutes ago With a litle luck i will know more tomorrow.
Frank

All Black SS

I've been on a few different sides of situations like this, I'll tell of my experiences and opinions.
But first I have a question: The tech said he heard a loud pop. Anyone else try to drive the car since? If so what did it do?

I used to build transmissions on the side. I built a th350 for a kid with a third gen, told him it'll hold up to whatever the car can put out. You could out run the car on a bicycle, he planned on building the engine up but the trans went out. I built it at cost.
He brought it back with a burned forward clutch, nothing else wrong, replaced only the clutches.
He brought it back again, broken low roller clutch. I've taken near 100 or more of these out and had a bucket full of them saved and they all looked brand new.
I told the kid I know somethings not right, either you been trying to power brake it, or were neutral dropping it or something.
We were a two man crew at work and shortly after that he asked me what a neutral drop was, I told him and asked you been doing that haven't you? He said yes, I asked why because it wouldn't spin them when you tried power braking right, he said yes.

One more before I get to my point. Knowing what this kid did, I thought I'd try it one day to a work truck after the boss pissed me off. A 4L80E with 30k on it trying to power brake a van...it took about 2 minutes--gone. (maybe more like 5)

I also took a '04 ford van and threw it in reverse going 50, lot of bad noises, but still drove it near 100 miles.
When picking these up the trans shop always said what was wrong, the boss asked what would cause it, trans guy said it's just one of those things, it happens, totally normal.

Tech could have done that or dropped it in gear, why not? They assumed it was the original trans so a burned clutch set wouldn't be that uncommon.

And before all you shop guys start whining I'd sure like to know why there were new hammer marks on my floor board from the y pipe hitting it after I brought my car back in a second time raising hell about the alignment still being wrong. It takes a hell of a lot to get my y pipe to hit at all, and they test drove it several times.

382ssz28

iTrader: (24)

Arguements and posts should never be put to print until the evidence is produced. If the low clutch housing is split, (the mechanic had to drive the car back in manual low), it's a good possibility he "neutral slammed" the trans or a reverse to drive under load. If the input sprag is rolled, this has happened for a number of reasons, one of which is a firm shift or even a pot hole under load. At a dealership, I imagine it is much harder to watch for patterns for an abusive mechanic. In a smaller shop, such as mine, I have found a few people I have replaced for the "lack of respect" for a customers property. It is very difficult to find loyal people to trust, especially the high performance vehicles for a simple road test. I road test ALL of my customers vehicles as my name is on the title, (and on the line), to save headaches. See what the evidence shows before the linch mob is employed. A good manager or owner would have handled the situation so this post would have never been written. Just an opinion.

jmilz28

iTrader: (13)

The political nature of this thread even by the OP seems a little premature, though his actions speak logically for him.

FACT: A dealership is just another shop. If you think they are any better or worse, on balance, than any other, you are misguided. You can get boned by a private shop and get taken care of by dealerships just as easily. Lots of dealerships earn the moniker "stealerships" and on the flip side lots of people come in trying to scam the "rich" dealer out of something. If you think either one isn't true, you are clueless about this business.

Some things are better taken care of at a dealer, and some at private shops. Your main concern should be TRUST, i.e.:
1. Quality of work
2. Reputation and warranty
3. Professionalism
4. Value (as opposed to price)

People who make these stupid *** generalizations either way are ignorant.

It's sad you've had this tough experience but there are still too many unknowns, and you may or may not be able to definitively discern what the cause of the problem was.
1. It's a 7-8 year old hot rod and the only good part of the car is the powertrain
2. The history of the car is unknown to them
3. Sometimes seemingly unrelated issues, aren't (i.e. overheating)
4. Sometimes people break **** (neutral drop), sometimes parts just fail

Going right to litigation pretty much guarantees the shop won't work with you, so don't act shocked by that.

In the end, the shop doesn't assume responsibility for every component of a used car in their care. They ARE responsible to do the right thing regarding the repairs it is there for, and overall caring for it. I think the list of stuff could be responsible proactive care, or greed - probably a combination. Don't tell me your 7-8 year old f-body is flawless otherwise, we ALL know better than that.

It happened on their watch, so they should do SOMETHING, but by going legal and hostile so early, don't be surprised if they don't.

I'm very interested to see what Performabuilt finds. A third party would have been a better idea, as Performabuilt has a vested interest in their product not being the problem. That said, I wouldn't lose much sleep based on their reputation.

Keep us posted and I hope this works out fairly for you and that we can logically and conclusively determine what is fair.

performabuilt

iTrader: (25)

Actually we do not have a vested interest , The transmission was purchased in January 2007 making it near a year out of warranty and has been over 20000 miles as mentioned, From our perspective its a Restore "and elaborate refresh" Paid, so in our case it will simply be a "just the facts mam" issue. There are many possibilities and its even possible the answer cannot be known from the tear down which will hopefully happen today if not then in the morning and I will be called over where I will take pictures and then list a range of possible causes. Which is all I can do. I/WE have no inclination either way, It is what it is a broken transmission-FAILED PART/ABUSE/OTHER. Will post results when available. I brought up the restore for the gentleman because the prices he was being quoted were quite high and it was a way to save him some money and the reason they exist, So our customers never have to buy a complete transmission again.
Our only interest here as always is taking care of our customer.
Frank at PerformaBuilt

All Black SS

I agree with everything you say. But by going legal, they may not have a choice as to doing something about it or not.
My question is still unanswered by the OP, if he couldn't drive the car home I'd get hostile and go legal right away too. If he could drive it home, I'd kind of wait. I'm wondering which happened, maybe I missed that part.

Same here, I've been on this site many more years than my current username reflects. I have 100% trust that Frank at Performabuilt will give an honest diagnosis of the problem, even if the trans he built was at fault. EDIT: which I doubt is the case

PNYKLR-TA

iTrader: (1)

I've had many a dealer do this same thing to me, and thats the reason i went to a performance specialist in my location. He is a very reputable tranny builder here in AZ but also works on every aspect of the car and he knows F-bodies very well.

My worst experience was with the VW dealer, i went in and told them i have $4,000 to fix my car blah blah, i had a previous mechanic say my synchro's were out, well i took it to the dealer and told them that, well after their 'tech' drove my car he determined it wasnt the synchro's and it was the clutch and a few other odd things that really had nothing to do with the process of changing a gear. well i paid all the money taking their tech's advice. got the car back went around the corner and it still wouldnt shift into second above 3,500RPM's drove right back and told them, i took your advice and had fixed what you thought was wrong, and the car still isnt completely functional. i was only 18 at the time but i have a very stern talk with the owner of the Dealership and they actually ended up doing all the labor for free but i still had to pay for parts, so long story short i spent nearly 2k in parts when i really only needed half that.

Dealers are all out for every cent you have and the only time you should be dealing with them is purchasing a new car, which i even still have a hard time doing.

performabuilt

iTrader: (25)

Ok so everyone knows the transmission was perfect in every way with the exception of the input sprag which it appears has rolled over partially and could create the symptom mentioned.
I cannot state a cause with any certainty, Abuse, parts failure, etc are all certainly possible. There is no way to know for sure in any case. In every other respect the transmission was perfect I will post pictures from inside later this eve as soon as i get them resized down to a size that will fit
Frank at PerformaBuilt

performabuilt

iTrader: (25)

INPUT SPRAG THIS IS WHERE THE PROBLEM IS



The input sprag has rolled note some of the elements are straight and others slanted


The rest of the internal pictures i took of this unit can be found at the link below not no other damage or discernible wear is to be seen, The 3/4 clutch and all clutch sets are like new. No hard parts damage of any kind beyond the input sprag. The pan other than the usual dust is very clean and the fluid while obviously having been a little warm (high stall car city driving) looked very good. I would have posted all the pictures here but photo bucket is a pain. I think I will just use our sever to host next time.

http://s722.photobucket.com/albums/ww227/performabuilt/

Could the sprag roll be due to abuse (possibly) Could it have just failed coincidentally (possibly) No way to know the answer absolutely

All Black SS

I find that interesting, the tech knew what to do to get the input sprag to break and probably thought he was going to have the "I told you so" proof. If the OP was a sucker and said fix it.

Tough one to prove though, and if I'm wrong, what happened is a hell of a coincidence.

The Dragon

iTrader: (6)

Interesting indeed.

I can't recall if it was revealed in the thread earlier but it was stated to Frank initially.

The service writer and tech tried to coerce my Wife into $800-1000 worth of "necessary" maintenace eg. Brakes (which are at 80% or better; just replaced earlier this year). We were scheduled to pick the car up the next day so I didn't care that they were trying to rip us for unnecessary "repairs."

Little did I know that the input sprag was going to "fail" the next day on a test drive

Another dealership's shop, which used to send work back and forth in the past but does NOT any more, yielded some very interesting business practices on the part of Kelly similar to this situation.

Doubtful we'll be reimbursed for this fiasco in a court of law but my Wife has an attorney on retainer so we'll bring it to court on principal anyway and MAYBE it will help deter any future "incidents" for other customers.

Frank, I remember the conversation we had weeks ago. In our initial talk you said you would ship us a replacement tranny the same day you received our transmission; which is why I paid you the $950 on 11-22-08. When can we expect you to ship us a tranny? I thank you for your immediate attention to this matter and the diagnosis in such a short time

In lieu of Frank's findings, however inconclusive, and information our attorney's office has gleaned from various sources I will not be changing the thread title.