bob82pigdog Posted March 13, 2015 Author Report Share Posted March 13, 2015 You guys have all been great at helping me work this out physically and mentally. For that, I'm very thankful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrsideways Posted March 13, 2015 Report Share Posted March 13, 2015 (edited) Yesterday morning I walked into the first shop with a receipt and write up of the work performed by the second shop and asked for them to refund me the labor that the second shop charged. It was a decent bit less than the total I paid for their original labor. I feel that that's fair as others have said above. The technician didn't believe the diagnosis. He said he remembered tightening the PP bolts. Haha. The shop manager blew up pretty quickly. I don't think I've been yelled at like that by a person who wasn't my father. It wasn't fun. He said, angrily, things like, "You don't think we'd have warrantied our labor?", "I told you we wouldn't pay for someone else's work.", "You trusted us to do this job in the first place, why didn't you trust us to fix it?", "I told you we'd take it apart and not charge you if it was our fault." He made it sound like I didn't give them the chance to make things right, and that I had been unreasonable in pulling the car and taking it somewhere else. The thing is though, last Friday when I was trying to figure out what to do, the manager displayed no confidence that they could figure it out. I knew how the technician felt; that either the old trans had to go back in factory configuration or I had to bring them the parts to create factory dual mass configuration. Both bogus options! The manager did not take a clear and confident stance that I should let them take it apart and figure out what was wrong. They had made their minds up that the newer transmission wasn’t working with a SMF and I knew they were wrong! So the fact was, yes I did not have confidence they could fix it at that point and I was ready to take it to someone that could. The tech was blinded by the mix of parts and wasn't able to imagine that he might have screwed up. When I talked with the guy it was clear that he thought any further work would be pointless since he was convinced the parts were wrong. I'm not the type of person to puff my chest up even when I KNOW I am right. There is always that small chance I'm wrong. The way I saw it was, if I screwed something up with the wrong parts, or I re-assembled the transmission incorrectly, I was gonna have to pay double labor anyway. So I had to make a choice: leave it with the same guys who insisted the parts wouldn't work and I knew they were wrong or take it to a place that I deemed competent via a phone conversation explaining the situation. Especially knowing what we know now, isn't it reasonable to assume that the first shop could have taken it apart and made the same error again? Taking it apart, putting it back together, charging me twice, and still having a car that won't go into gear and nobody knows why! I thought my best bet was to go with the new shop that I trusted to fix things. I filed a claim with the credit card company to refund the amount of the second shop’s labor. I still didn’t think it would be right to go for the whole amount. They have 11 days to respond with their side of the story at which point the card company may ask for more details like a copy of the report from the second shop, etc. I think I have a pretty good case, but who knows what defense the shop will come up with. We’ll see what happens. The whole situation has me feeling really bad. I’ve had some small things done at the first shop and I liked the people there. The manager told me to never come back, BTW. The shop put in the time, they probably need the money, and I don’t wanna be the reason they don’t make payroll or a shop owner comes crashing down on somebody. If the same thing happened with all OEM parts and I hadn't performed operation on the trans case, I would have been confident the only option was that they screwed something up. And they probably would have been confident in that, too. I would have let them take it apart, discover the loose PP bolts, put it back together and pay in full. Everyone's happy. But, that’s not the way the cookie crumbles. From experience, no shop will pay another shops labor. Unfortunately you might not win this one with the credit card as their statement back to the card company will likely be. "we offer a warranty on our work, customer declined the ability for us to warranty our work and took vehicle elsewhere knowing full well he would have to pay". Be interested from both a consumer and a business owner stand point in how this works out. Very surprised the 1st shop let the car leave without taking it apart again on their dime to at least check their work. By not doing that they invited this situation. Shame on them. I would have taken it apart for free just to make sure it didn't go to another shop and find I did something wrong. Wow, just wow. Edited March 13, 2015 by Mrsideways Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piston Slapper Posted March 13, 2015 Report Share Posted March 13, 2015 Doesn't matter to a credit card company in the slightest what your shop's terms are. All they care about is their agreements with the processor and card holder, which clearly state that if you don't do it right they can withhold payment. Also, from the credit card company's standpoint, it's not a warranty issue... they never delivered the promised service in the first place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mrsideways Posted March 13, 2015 Report Share Posted March 13, 2015 (edited) Doesn't matter to a credit card company in the slightest what your shop's terms are. All they care about is their agreements with the processor and card holder, which clearly state that if you don't do it right they can withhold payment. Also, from the credit card company's standpoint, it's not a warranty issue... they never delivered the promised service in the first place. Ah, but they did. They installed a customer supplied clutch and flywheel. Right or Wrong the work was still performed. If you go into the mall and steal a shirt from gap that has a stain on it.... doesn't matter that the shirt wasn't correct, you still stole it. I'm More playing devils Advocate here as he did the only option left to him because this shop didn't play ball in any way shape or form. With them not agreeing to look further into the problem, then letting the car go without looking further into the issue then after finding they were in the wrong refusing to refund or partial refund. This shop clearly has a management issue and is in the wrong. Lets see how good they are at disputing credit card back charges. Hopefully for the customers sake, not very good at it. Edited March 13, 2015 by Mrsideways Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piston Slapper Posted March 13, 2015 Report Share Posted March 13, 2015 That's not how they'll see it. Some work may have been performed, but it was not the work that was ordered by the customer or promised by the shop. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattwebb502 Posted March 15, 2015 Report Share Posted March 15, 2015 (edited) A judge would say "Mistakes happen. You did not afford them the opportunity to correct their mistake." The ruling is up to the judge. In this case the judge is the bank / card company. I'm not prepared to say which way this will go, but my gut is that the credit card company will side with the shop. The services were performed. It wasn't satisfactory to the client. The client did not dispute it with the shop first. I'm pretty sure you have to dispute with the seller/provider first. I think they are pretty black and white with these issues. It's one way or the other, with no "in the middle." ok, mid-post update: I posed this scenario, in very general/vague terms, to my wife. She worked for the "Presidential Office" for Citi for several years.. tip of the tip top tier of disputes and claims resolutions. These matters go no farther. Formal/legal letters back and forth with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), lawyers, etc, etc. The point is, she's a voice of real experience here. She says that this sort of thing used to come up ALL THE TIME. She says that without a doubt, the dispute department would ask "Did you give the shop a chance to correct the mistake? Most shops offer a guarantee on their work." She says the claim will get rejected. Occasionally these disputes would land on her desk, and they would get rejected. Dispute departments will sometimes, under pressure, just write off the claim. The merchant would keep their money, and the customer would get their money back. The bank would absorb the hit. The maximum they would write off is $25. If the disputes made it through the ranks all the way to the "Presidential Office" where they had absolute power, they would write off large claims. She said the most she ever did was around $7000, but they had to REALLY feel that the customer was very clearly in the right, and they would have to go in front of management and lay out their case under hard questioning in order to convince management to sign off.. which was not easy. A write off of over $500 was according to her "Pretty rare. Not very common at all." I asked her, "So if somebody brought this case to you?" She said, "We'd say tough sh!t.... In a nice way. We might give them a little something to make them feel better. $25 or $50. But for the most part, it would be tough sh!t." I think your chances are slim. Edited March 15, 2015 by mattwebb502 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bob82pigdog Posted January 30, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 30, 2016 (edited) It's overdue, (sorry) but I do have an update on this situation. I know everyone has been on the edge of their seats. The short story is I got my money back! The long story is the shop replied to the credit card company with a letter stating their case and why the charge back should be cancelled. At which point the credit card company did cancel the charge back. I was given a chance to respond to that letter and eventually I did get the money back. It was scary because I had to wait 90 days for the case to close. At any time they could have changed their mind had the shop responded again in a way that would convince the card company to do so. The shop's letter to the card company was really generic and in order to convince the card company they did their job correctly and everything was all my fault they tried to use stupid buzzwords that nontechnical people who don't know anything about cars would use. They said things like, "The customer provided heavy duty custom parts" and that the parts I provided required them to "modify the hydraulics, which was labor intensive." They also said the transmission and parts I provided were for a completely different chassis. I see where they were trying to go with that but we know better. Lastly they said the "Frankenstein approach" of mixed parts was at fault. Basically a load of crap and it absolutely had my blood boiling when I had the chance to read it. All my language arts assignments and technical writing classes came together for me in this one event. I understand why I had to go through all those classes now. I put together 3 pages of what I would consider my finest piece of literary technical persuasion smackdown! With my letter I included screenshots and descriptions of all the parts I supplied the shop. I used the same card so they could verify my purchases. The clutch line and slave/ throwout bearing were OEM Volvo, so I believe that helped to make it clear that no "custom" parts by any definition were used. I tried to prove that the shop was grasping for an excuse by saying things that were inaccurate and plain untrue about the parts I brought them. I went through my best explanation of the technical aspects of the parts involved and made it clear there were some differences but nothing that was incompatible like the shop was alleging. The icing on the cake was the receipt and report from the second shop saying they found, "loose pressure plate bolts. No additional parts were required to complete this repair." I think I was able to make my case that the first shop was negligent and refused to own up to their mistake. A long frustrating process but I believe justice was served. I didn't charge back the full amount of the work, just the extra I had to pay the second shop to diagnose and fix. Update part 2: The pink anaerobic sealant I used to seal up the transmission case is still holding up fine. No gear oil is leaking out. Edited January 30, 2016 by bob82pigdog 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TryingBe Posted January 30, 2016 Report Share Posted January 30, 2016 Loose pressure plate bolt is really no excuse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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