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Option 1: Full rebuild
Option 2: Low miles used transmission
We told them that our budget only allows for us to choose option two, a used transmission. They quickly found a transmission for us, but were told that shipping would take a while due to the holidays. Unfortunately after two weeks Lakes Transmission Service had lost the number for the seller of the used transmission, and they had no proof of purchase or shipping for the transmission. The one time they contacted us they called to tell us they had no way of finding out where the transmission was. They found the phone number for the seller a few days later but were unable to get a hold of him. We called to see the progress, Lakes Transmission told us that the phone number wasn’t working and they would call us the next day to give us our new options that they found. They never called. Three days later we called for an update and we were told that our vehicle was done and ready to be picked up that day. They told us that they looked at the transmission closer and realized after three weeks that they could fix it by just replacing parts and doing a partial rebuild. They decided to do this work WITHOUT contacting us. We would have been okay with this, except that our final bill was 30% more than what we had told them our budget was. We asked for a used transmission because that is what we could afford. They never asked us, and did work we didn’t authorized and charged us for it. The worst part was that they said they gave us a “discount on labor” because they had our car for so long (there was no discount marked on our receipt.) and the bill was still 30% above our budget. When we asked them what the begining cost of labor was we were shocked to find out that it would have been almost $1000 more than what they charged us. For some reason this shop seems to think it is okay to not give you what you ask for, do work to your vehicle without asking, and then charge you a thousand dollars more than they knew was in your budget. We are outraged. We have met with the owner of the shop, and he is unwilling to make things right. He also had the audacity to tell us that our car cost his shop money by being there for so long when they were clearly doing nothing to fix it.
So take this as a warning, if you want a shop that will communicate with you, keep your budget in mind, ask permission before performing expensive services, and have the decency to own up to their own mistakes take your vehicle somewhere else, Lakes Transmission Service failed in all of those areas. We were shown nothing but incompetence when it came to professional behavior. Customer be warned, at this shop you aren’t always right, and you have no rights to what is done to your vehicle.