I had a clunck everytime I shifted on our last event, but I figured it was the exaust banging up against the floor board. I have very little clearence and both motor mounts are gone.
Last week as I was checking compression, I heard the clunck again. Now the starter could not have moved the whole engine, so I kept investigating. Pulled the valve covers pushrods looked fine, and compression wasn't all that off. "Could it be a thrown connecting rod bearing?" I pondered... Probably not because oil pressure was fine last time the engine ran. So, I decided to pull the motor (I was planning on playing with the cam anyway). I take off the starter to access the flexplate/torque converter bolts...... SUPPRISE! One bolt is sheared off and other two are almost compleetly backed out.
So here goes the story of my transmission going a few months back----> Tranny died.. I pulled it... got it rebuilt.. tranny shop left out a few slightly important pieces... rebuilt trant only has 2nd and reverse... I pulled tranny again... shop fixed it again.... I had shop install it since it was their fault I had to pull it twice...
So it looks like they forgot to tighten the flexplate bolts... duh
On the bright side I found the banging.

My other car: Tranny died a month ago... took it to different tranny shop... fixed the tranny and created a coolant leak.. I fixed the coolant leak... tranny died again after 5 days of use... took it back to tranny shop.. fixed it again, created new coolant leak... they claimed they are not responsible for the coolant leak since the cooling system is not part of the transmission (even though they have to disconect the heater pipes to remove the tranny, Plus they stated that the tranny died because it overheated, and on the bill it clearly states that they are not responsible for overheated transmissions, but they did rebuild it under warantee as a FAVOR.

So this is why I WILL NEVER EVER TAKE ANY CAR TO A MECHANIC EVER AGAIN!!! I have been working on cars since I was 14. I do pretty much everything, except transmissions, rearends, tuning and machineing.
So thats it! From now on I will rebuild my on trannys too. I'll will leave the rearend to Hoopers, and since I don't own a Dyno or a Machine shop I will still out source those too.

That sucks. I rebuilt my 700R4 about 10 or 11 times. I learned alot, then I swapped the car to a manual.....

Sounds like you need to add another pedal under the dash and change that lever between the seats.

How do you burn up a transmission in 5 days unless someone fucked up rebuilding it? After they fix the car, I would've started screaming.

That's my biggest worry about my van, that the trans will go out and a shop will bend me over and service me through my wallet. After all the horror stories I've heard (and my dad went through with a 700R4 10 years ago), I'd almost rather put a used one in from a 'yard.

edit: I can't read...

Exactly!
That tranny was a 4T80E. In a Caddy.

I'll keep my 4L60E in the TA. It ran 104K for me fine. You just got to keep-em cool and they are fine. But, when they leave half of the valve body out during a rebuild they don't go anywhere.

I know how you feel. Every car I've ever had worked on came back in worse shape than it left in. As frustrating as all my experiences have been, in the end, they've made me a better mechanic. About the only things I farm out now are alignments, and tire mouting/balancing. And some day I'd like to have my own tire mounting/balancing machine. I see them in Harbor freight all the time. If only I had the room.
Sad but true... if you want something done right, you'll have to do it yourself.

Yeah all auto techs are hacks

kyle

Thanks for reminding me. I forgot to tighten some bolts on a customers car.

John

All dishonest, trying to get ya!

Don't take it personally, there's hacks in every trade. That's why you have to find the good ones and give them all your business.

lol. Its all good.

Seriously I see this kind of stuff all of the time posted on the net.

However it almost always involves trans shops or domestic dealerships.

I honestly think that the not so good mechanics tend to work at these places. I'm not tooting any horns here but the few domestic guys that have tried to work on the euro trash that I work on generally don't make it a week before either quiting or getting fired.

I do get pretty bummed out when I see/hear about bad experiences like this one. Hell it makes me want to punch the boneheads in the nuts.

RANT


The sad truth is that there are more retards wrenching now than ever. The automotive business has a huge shortage of techs. For every 5 techs that retire only one enters the field. Basicly shops and dealerships are scratching the bottom of the barrel to get techs in the door. We do a trainee program at my dealership and I have sent 7 of my trainees packing. When ever I say this it makes me feel old and I'm only 32. These kids that are entering the field are lazy ignorant little shits. They don't respect anything or anyone and all of them are just here for the quick buck. They have no desire to learn on thier own and expect you to tell them how to fix shit. All they want is the easy way out.

It drives me crazy to see things like this and frankly I don't blame any one for being pissed off at dealerships and the quality of work that some of them put out. Fortunatly for me and my customers my dealership operates on honesty, customer satisfaction and quality work. We have had the best CSI out of the nations VW dealerships for going on 7 years. Why? Pride in what we do. That and we run the slackers and hacks out of the shop as fast as possible.

sorry end of rant.

carry on.

later

kyle

Wow, that's wild. I have a buddy (29, not a kid) who got laid off from a Jag dealership and couldn't get work for almost two years so he decided to go to the School of Automotive Machinists since he's hell bent on doing something with cars for a living. Maybe I should've told him to head towards Colorado instead of Houston. Haha

I have seen the retard side of it too. A friend of my brother went through UTI (Universal Technical Institute... yeah, not the other meaning for the acronym) which is supposedly a "good automotive school" around here but the guys I've met who've gone through it are mouth breathers who like the big toolbox and saying they're a mechanic.

To give an update on the damage.
Flex plate is all f***t up, rear cover scrwed up, 2 rear cover bolts bent, back of the block is damaged. Tranny bell housing is scrached up (only got damaged once the bolt finally made it to the other side of the flexplate) I found the head of the bolt in the bell housing semi premanently attached/dug in.

I will try to get a refund for the install, and the price of a flex plate, rear cover, gasket set.

Go stickshift. Not cheap, but at least you'll only have to do it once.

MSN Careers has auto techs listed as #15 of the top 50 hottest jobs. They listed the salary @ 32k howevr I believe that is way low for a good flat rate tech. The top 5 guys in our shop are right around the 60-80 range with my brother and I making roughly 70-75.

Its not easy and sometimes the hours can be long with the ocasional saturday shift. However you can make a honest living slinging wrenchs as long as you are not a slacker and don't rip people off.

kyle