On 2/21 I had my car at the local dealership. After they gave me a laundry list of problems (including the $1600 “rear strut knuckle” replacement), I opted only to have new spark plugs put in and a general tune up performed.
By 2/29, my car was driving like absolute shit. Acceleration was bad and the amount of stuttering was unbelievable. The stuttering was generally occurring at shifts, so I took the car to Aamco and figured my transmission was shot (again) and that another $2000+ repair was necessary.
On 3/1 I started looking for a new ride. More on that later.
On 3/3, Aamco got back to me. They basically said that the tuning on the car was so bad that they wouldn’t be able diagnose a transmission problem if there was one.
On 3/4 I took the car to Meineke. One of the spark plug wires had become disconnected. That improved things. But things are still not right. I questioned whether the remaining problems could be due to a clogged fuel filter or possibly bad gas. They agreed it could, so I opted for the new fuel filter since I probably needed one anyway. The jury is still out on the gas. They recommended I return to a dealer to have the tuning looked into more deeply, in hopes that they would be willing to fix anything they may have screwed up. Meineke also quoted me a price on the suspension work I needed: all necessary work on both front and rear for $800. In other words, twice the work at half the price of the dealership.
So I am pleased that my car looks like it can still run for a while. That is especially important since I have zippo saved for a new car (not that I don’t have anything saved; I’ve been shoving money into retirement accounts to maximize matching and beat time deadlines, etc).
With the car still running, I can avoid having to buy anything. I was thinking about getting something used from Carmax. But it looks like the lesson there is that a newish pre-owned car from Carmax with a high used-car-loan interest rate costs just about as much as a brand new car from a dealership. And, as Rachel pointed out, the Civics on the Carmax lot cost more than her Civic cost new just a couple years ago.
I guess the lesson is that new car dealerships are OK for selling you a new car, but not at all for helping you with your used car.
I too had automatic transmission problem. Went to one car shop and had $500.00 spent and absolutly nothing was fix. Got mad and pulled the car from that shop and took it to Aamco, because it was probably a transmission specialty shop thing. They did their “free diagnostic” on it, diagnosed that it needed to be rebuilt for $1,000.00, because reverse and third was slipping, (not true) and the transmission oil was burnt. Now the oil in the transmission was brand new from the other shop, and there was no slippage issues in any gear. The car was not driven at all between garages. I do know that someone added a solvent to the transmission oil, (to clean it out for rebuilding) because it did break down the oil viscosity, and it desolved the clutch packs enough so that the car after a week of setting in the yard would not back up.
It sat for a week due to a new transmission being delivered, for installation, that only cost $700.00 including shipping. I saved the oil from the old transmission to have it analysed by a lab to see what was added. The only problem now is that even though the system was flushed as best as we could get it, there must have been residue from the solvent some where, because the new oil in the new transmission is getting dark and is starting to smell like the old did. The only good thing is that the new transmission came with a three year, unlimited mileage warranty. Every shop out there has a plan and procedure to rip off the consumer, no matter how “honest” they like to present themselves.