"mwdcanuck" > wrote in message
om...
> I have a lovely 1990 Chrysler New Yorker in very good condition with
> 80,000 original miles. In April of this year it had approx. 65,000
> miles and I had to have the automatic transmission completely rebuilt
> for about $2600.(canadian), but the work was done in California. The
> warranty was 6 months or 12,000 miles and had just expired.

This was your first mistake. You should have chosen a rebuilder that
offers a longer warranty. Even Scramco offers a 36 month/36,000 mile
warranty, of course it's a bit more expensive than their basic 12 month
/12,000
mile warranty. The 6 month warranties are for people that are rebuilding
their
trans so they can sell the car quick.

> This week
> I noticed that on rare instances (once or twice in 300 miles) the
> automatic shift into low gear didn't seem quite as smooth so I decided
> to have it checked. I took the car to a Chrysler dealership, explained
> my concern and requested that they check things. After two hours of
> labour they advised that the mechanic could find nothing wrong and had
> "reset the codes".
> I picked the vehicle up and drove it less than one mile when the
> transmission started lurching very badly (enough to throw us forward
> against the seat belts). It did this approx. 5 times in 100'. I drove
> one more block to the house with the car placed manually in low gear
> and then called for a tow truck to take the car back to the
> dealership. I am now being told their transmission specialist (not the
> mechanic that did their original check and "code reset") had rechecked
> things and decided that I now need a new transmission.
> I am having a hard time with this explanation. The transmission
> had been working okay until I took it to the dealership (with the
> exception noted in paragraph one above). They work on it for two
> hours, give it back to me and now it is totally undriveable after
> driving it for less than one mile. I can't help but feel that their
> mechanics "tinkering" might be the problem. Is that possible? I would
> like to hear some opinions and advice on this problem, particularly
> how to deal with the dealership.

Well to be brutally honest you don't got a leg to stand on. You can of
course go yell at the dealership all you want, but the fact is that you
never
would have took it to a mechanic if you didn't think there was something
wrong.

Also, if it turns out to be some problem internally in the transmission,
then
nothing that someone could do to the outside of the transmission - except
perhaps pouring sand down the dipstick tube - would cause the trans to
completely collapse internally less than a mile from the dealership. If
this is
an internal failure, as opposed to something simple like a sensor came
unplugged or some such, then your beef is with the rebuilder, and the
dealership was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.

There are a couple things with this whole scenario I find disturbing:

1) Why did it take 2 hours to find nothing wrong? It seems to me that a
20 minute test drive should have been enough to establish there was
nothing wrong.

2) Why were codes cleared at all? If the trans was operating properly there
would be no codes in the first place.

3) Why is the advice now that you need a rebuild? Why do you need a
new transmission? What do they think failed? Have they run through ALL
the troubleshooting steps in the service manual and the result of all of
them
is the trans is bad? Or, is this a snap diagnosis?

4) Why did you tow it back to the dealership when you are suspecting their
mechanic's tinkering was to blame? Haven't you heard the old "fool me once,
shame on me, fool me twice, shame on you"?

5) Why did you even choose to go to a dealership in the first place? You
obviously
didn't have the trans rebuilt 6 months ago at a dealership, so if you were
using
independent mechanics then, why the sudden switch back the dealership now?

Everyone knows that dealership repairs cost more than repairs done at an
independent auto repair shop, unless the independent is cheating you of
course,
mainly because the dealership service places automatically use new parts for
everything (even if what they are replacing is a cast iron exhaust manifold
or
some such) and the factory OEM parts are almost always the most expensive
parts as compared to the aftermarket.

For this reason it is typical that for most people particularly in larger
cities,
once the factory warranty has expired they start taking their vehicle to the
independent garages.

What you need to face now is you got a potential major repair here, and you
need to shop it around. Call the dealership and tell them you are going to
drive it around and get a second opinion - nothing personal, but with this
much money on the line your going to have to compare prices.

People have no qualms calling around to a dozen stores to save $5 on a
cd player, why should a $2K trans repair be any different?

Ted