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Car Trouble :(

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Baldoraxx

Internalizing Master Of Casual
This isn't so much as a rant as a i need to just let some emotions out.

I just took my car to a transmission shop for some work on a slipping clutch. Well the guy tells me that he needs to look under the pan to really tell anything, he tells me best case just flush the transmission and the worst case is to rebuild the transmission. Well it turns out to be the latter. First heartattack right there. I'm thinking shit this is going to get expensive. I am very young and inexperienced in this sort of thing so i am an idiot for not getting a second opinion. Kicking myself now.

So last night for $400 he pulls the engine apart to see what is bad and what is good. He calls me today and he told me some part is bad and that the casing has to be replaced as well. My heart literally skipped a beat when he tells me it will cost $2600 to rebuild my transmission. Now, i'm no mechanic but this is a little high. I am stuck in it because i gave him the go ahead. Have you ever seen a grown man cry? Well, that's pretty much how i am right now because that was my wife and mines Disney money for Christmas.

I'm going to do my best to get the money for us to go but i really don't know how i am going to do it. I just have no motivation to finish today and do anything. All i can feel right now is my heavy heartbeat.

Sorry for unloading on you guys but i just needed to get that out of my system. There is a lot else going on in my life right now that i would like to keep to myself at the moment. It just seems like everything is falling apart. My wife has been by my side the entire time. I really don't know how i could have gotten through everything without her.
 
Sorry to hear that man, life throws us curve balls when we are least expecting it. We're here if you need anything, even if it's just an ear!
 
:( That is one of the most life draining situations you can be in. Planning something awesome, all ready to get it going, and bam. Ripped away from you. :(

<3
 
Man this hits home too much. The times I had car "trouble" turn into 5000+ repairs baffles my mind. In hindsight I always keep a car fund seperate from all other funds. Literally. Because after two 5000 + in a row I was almost not eating, and it was for something stupid and unable to be caught. BTW car mechanics are usually nice if you can hggle with them. Tell them what your situation is, shit even bring your wife. They may drop the price. Nothing is SET in stone.
 
tr1age said:
BTW car mechanics are usually nice if you can hggle with them. Tell them what your situation is, shit even bring your wife. They may drop the price. Nothing is SET in stone.
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Thats what i hope to do. Hopefully he will do a cash deal with me, I think he set it high because i was talking about his financing. The only sucky part is.... i suck at haggling.
 
Baldoraxx said:
Thats what i hope to do. Hopefully he will do a cash deal with me, I think he set it high because i was talking about his financing. The only sucky part is.... i suck at haggling.
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There are two ways of handling haggling.

1. Being pathetic and showing you have no way to pay the FULL bill, but can pay a large portion of it.
2. Being confident enough and knowing "I can go anywhere else to get this done, give me the good deal or I walk".

1 works when you don't know the subject well. 2 works when you know wtf is up.
 
I recently got similar news. I had a Cadillac (old man car that I actually REALLY liked) and it was overheating. After putting about $600 into it, trying to fix it, my mechanic determined it was a headgasket and torque converter (which is actually a transmission part that they noticed was going bad). Total cost to fix it would have been around $3500. I could buy an engine with around 25k miles and have it dropped in for $4500, so I was thinking about doing that.

But I ended up getting a different car.
 
Since I ran a shop for many years, I mostly just want to fact check what they told you. Judging from how you wrote about it, you don't know much about transmissions so I'm sure you don't exactly remember everything they said. It's pretty easy to baffle someone with bullshit in that business, especially if it sounds to you like they're talking gibberish. Very rarely are you even speaking to the technician who is actually putting his hands on your car. You can always ask to speak to him, though. They can be surly and a pain in the ass, but once they are talking to you face to face it's easy to tell if they are competent and truly found your problem or if they are throwing darts and hanging parts. For $2600 you should pretty much be getting a new (rebuilt) tranny with a nice fat warranty on it. Replacing the case? That sort of isn't adding up if you just had a slipping clutch.

Have they started the work? If not, you can always call and ask to get a copy of the estimate and ask them if they could give you the price of a rebuilt with warranty versus this repair.

Either way, car repairs suck HUGELY. Literally the only regret I have about getting out of the business is that I have to worry about maintaining and repairing my own vehicles now. And at least I still have a lot of friends in the business.

And do ask for a discount. At the very very least call them, tell them you're having trouble coming up with the money and ask if there's any wiggle room at all. Chances are they will at least come up with a couple hundred to knock off for ya. Every little bit helps.
 
Sorry to hear that and wow $2600 is high had to get one of mine re- built a little while back and was $1200 sucks you gave him the go ahead before looking around but hopefully you can haggle and work something out. Hopefully you find a way to go on your vacation
 
Fen said:
Since I ran a shop for many years, I mostly just want to fact check what they told you. Judging from how you wrote about it, you don't know much about transmissions so I'm sure you don't exactly remember everything they said. It's pretty easy to baffle someone with bullshit in that business, especially if it sounds to you like they're talking gibberish. Very rarely are you even speaking to the technician who is actually putting his hands on your car. You can always ask to speak to him, though. They can be surly and a pain in the ass, but once they are talking to you face to face it's easy to tell if they are competent and truly found your problem or if they are throwing darts and hanging parts. For $2600 you should pretty much be getting a new (rebuilt) tranny with a nice fat warranty on it. Replacing the case? That sort of isn't adding up if you just had a slipping clutch.

Have they started the work? If not, you can always call and ask to get a copy of the estimate and ask them if they could give you the price of a rebuilt with warranty versus this repair.

Either way, car repairs suck HUGELY. Literally the only regret I have about getting out of the business is that I have to worry about maintaining and repairing my own vehicles now. And at least I still have a lot of friends in the business.

And do ask for a discount. At the very very least call them, tell them you're having trouble coming up with the money and ask if there's any wiggle room at all. Chances are they will at least come up with a couple hundred to knock off for ya. Every little bit helps.
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Yeah come to think of it, I busted every peg in my engine by downshifting my bmw (used) a long time ago when I had a truck almost weave into me, and I freaked a bit. BAM all piston pegs bent lawl.

Rebuild of the BMW engine was 7500 I got it done for 4500. Soooo if you think of that and compare it to your make and model, maybe Fen is right, maybe they are messing around here cause you are showing weakness. Bastards.

Worst case they put your shit back together and you tow it to the next shop, and they charge you for the breakdown. Although that will add up too if you don't have a price already setup at the next place.
 
That's just horrible. It's never easy when life throws a wrench (pun intended) into plans. All I can say is it will still be a few months before Christmas rolls around. Don't cancel those plans just yet. If all else fails there is always credit!
 
I bought my last car for $800 and spent about 1200 fixing it up. As a teenager, I got burned by a shop that took my transmission apart when all I wanted them to do was diagnose a problem. I ended up paying them $800 just to basically put it back together because I felt stuck. Nowadays, I would call that BS, get my car towed to another shop, and send them the bill.
 
Yeah it is a load of crap. Well, the car will be done today so lets see what happens from there. Either the guy is gonna help of be a total schmuck. But that will be on him because the best advertisement for his business is word of mouth. But thanks everyone for the words of support. <3
 
time to rage and let everyone know the true nature of this business. Wouldn't even take his own coupon. didn't even budge a cent. Anybody know some good review websites.
 
Baldoraxx said:
time to rage and let everyone know the true nature of this business. Wouldn't even take his own coupon. didn't even budge a cent. Anybody know some good review websites.
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Sorry my man :( Yelp? I dunno if they do car shops... whats the name of the place and the city it is in?
 
Wow, that stinks that they wouldn't help at all. Everyone needs to make a buck but if you don't have enough profit figured into be able to at least throw someone a bone, you're doing it wrong.
 
Oh they had a profit. Lets just say they labor was half of the full price[DOUBLEPOST=1370984818,1370983999][/DOUBLEPOST]
tr1age said:
Sorry my man :( Yelp? I dunno if they do car shops... whats the name of the place and the city it is in?
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Word of mouth can make or break a small business. Its Cottman Transmission and Repair, Garner nc. Just don't want him to screw anyone else. It really hurts when they know they are screwing you and they put a smile on in front of your face
 
Oh and the best part about it was he told me that the total was $2600 and i could go online and get a $200 off coupon to bring my total to $2400. When i went in to pay for the car "Oh i already included the discount into the price i told you, i told you that price was with everything including the coupon." No you didn't shithead.
 
Well i have my problem on Reddit, yes reddit, the place to go when you want to bitch. But my main purpose of putting it up there is to make people aware of the company so that what happened to me doesn't happen to them. Surprisingly i have 25 upvotes and 7 downvotes and a good deal of comments.
 
Baldoraxx said:
Oh and the best part about it was he told me that the total was $2600 and i could go online and get a $200 off coupon to bring my total to $2400. When i went in to pay for the car "Oh i already included the discount into the price i told you, i told you that price was with everything including the coupon." No you didn't shithead.
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That's some shady business right there. At this point you are stuck, what can ya do? Just make people aware and turn them away from that place. Can you write a review for them on Yelp or something?
 
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