I REPEAT, DO NOT take ANY car to AAMCO on Rt. 27 in New Brunswick NJ. I recently ended a NIGHTMARE experience which began in Nov 2010 involving my 2003 Ford Escape which lastest over 1 year !! After developing an odd vibration that with a low hum that radiated through the body of the truck, I decided to take it to this place for a diagnosis. Keep in mind that my transmission worked fine, shifted fine and was maintained with the recommended fluid changes and I had not problems. To make a very long stressful story short, AAMCO tore my tranny apart for "diagonosis" and told me that my clutch plates went bad so I unfortunately had no choice now but to agreed to pay $3,000 for a tranny "rebuild". Well, when I got the truck back after SEVERAL WEEKS the first time after numerous excuses, I still had the SAME problem with the truck. So I took it back again and again and they started needlessly replacing part after part simply guessing as they could NOT properly repair the car and would not admit to it. So I went through them replacing the tranny 3 times along with a host of other parts (torque converter, engine mounts, rebuilt front differencial, CV joints, etc) and the original problem and vibration were NEVER fixed and since it was never the tranny to begin with, the owner finally admitted that it was an issue with the engine itself!!! When I attimately complained to the owner, I was ONLY able to get $750 back for all the lies, inconvenience, time and trouble that this place put me through and they even screwed up the car even more. THIS PLACE IS A JOKE, A RIP OFF AND INCOMPETANT. DEFINITELY STAY AWAY as others have had the same experience!!

 

Hopefully not all AAmco trans places are in the same boat.
I did have one eye opening experience with them when I had to pick up someone's vehicle and I saw the gent whacking a trans part with a carpenter's claw hammer. Grant you this is really no big deal , but I had formed an early opinion that survives well into this day.

 

April, 2011

I originally went to AAMCO to have my transmission rebuilt on a 2000 Chevy Tahoe. I was charged a price of 4300.00. A little steep I thought but figured why not since I’d be getting a great warrantee with it. The work was completed and I got the truck back but was back at the AAMCO shop, that very same week. The truck’s transmission began to slip and hesitate & the check engine light came back on. Apparently, some sort of torque converter that connects to the transmission was at fault. They swapped it out (or so I thought) and I was on my way. Two week later the check engine light came back on again, so it was back to AAMCO for the same issue. This exercise happened two more times, at which point I was REALLY UPSET that I spent 4300.00 for what I thought was new parts to only find out that they were using USED parts that continued to fail. The faulty torque converter they told me they kept swapping out, actually was not replaced, just rewired and put back in the truck. Shame on me for thinking that these guys were straight up & honest.

May 2012

I must have been either high or just not thinking straight because I actually went back to these guys to have a tune up & oil change done on the same truck. My rationale was it’s just a tune up and oil change. Surely they can’t botch this up or over-charge me. Boy, was I wrong. I dropped the truck off on Saturday afternoon (05/12/12) around noon. I had to call mid-day on Tuesday to find out what the story was. No one got back to me all day Monday to give me an estimate on the work. I wonder what would have happened if I didn’t call on Tuesday.
In any case, I was told that in addition to the tune up and oil change, I would need a new serpentine belt and a pulley assembly and with all the parts & labor I was looking at 1124.00 for everything. My mouth hit the floor. Over 1000.00 for a truck that was 12 years old. So I asked what if I only wanted the o.c. & t.u., AAMCO quoted me a price of 740.00. I also have a 2007 Mercedes Benz CLS550 and that doesn’t even cost over 700.00 to tune up. As the title says: SIMPLY AMAZING.
Once I recovered from my shock, I immediately told them not to touch the truck and I would be there today to pick it up. I left work early to get there before AAMCO closed, to ensure that I wouldn’t get hit with some sort of “holding fee”, should the truck have to stay there another night. To add insult to injury once I got the AAMCO, they provided me with a copy of the quote for when “I decided to come back and have the work done”. Yeah right. They wanted me to have to quote, so they wouldn’t have to pull the “numbers” out of their ***, like they did the first time. Why try to remember how much you’ve over-charged someone when you have a copy of it?

Anyway, once I got the truck back, I took it down to MJ’s Auto repair on Route 1. At MJ’s, I told them that I just wanted an oil change and tune up. I made no mention about the serpentine belt or pulley assembly. I wanted to see if AAMCO was just making that up to add more “fluff” and labor to the cost of the initial estimate. MJ’s gave me a quote of 320.00 for the oil change & tune up, which was half what AAMCO was trying to rape me for. I gave the green light for MJ’s to do the work. The next morning, I received a call from MJ’s stating that I needed a serpentine belt and pulley assembly. At least I felt somewhat ok with the fact that AAMCO wasn’t trying to completely “jail house” rape me with the labor/price (they were kind enough to want to use Vaseline). I digress. I asked what the additional expense would be for the belt & pulley work. MJ’s told me that EVERYTHING would come up to 540.00.
So, just for clarification:

AAMCO Quote for:
Tune Up
Oil Change
New Serpentine Belt
New Pulley Assembly
Total: 1124.00

MJ’s Auto Repair Quote for:
Tune Up
Oil Change
New Serpentine Belt
New Pulley Assembly
Total: 540.00

Gave them the green light to proceed, the work was done and picked up the truck a day later. Drove the truck from NJ all the way up to Toronto, Canada and back. No issues. I write this review to say don’t believe in all the hype and the fancy commercials about AAMCO. These people are a TOTAL RIP OFF. I was probably charged double what it actually cost to repair the transmission, the first time I went to them. I will never go back to these people. Don’t waste your time or money with these people. You work too hard to just give your money to CROOKS.

 

Hey Misterbig , Thanks for sharing such a useful information. Actually i'm new in New Brunswick NJ so i dnt have so much of idea about the AAMCO. Many thanks to Misterbig also i must say that keep on sharing this kind of useful information.

 

You need to keep in mind that a lot of trans places have only one person that is "supposed" trained on transmissions , The others there are usually only removal and installers that needed a job.
Most dealers today will only replace a trans with a company REMANUFACTURED unit.
These have all the latest modifications and new parts and come with a good warranty.
Just about any shop can obtain a dealer remanufactured trans from a dealer and they cost a little more, but the job is done once. Something to think about.

 

AAMCO offered me a job years ago rebuilding transmissions, They offered less than half what I had been making at a Toyota dealer. They said that was because, I only would be doing repair work. I met the guys at the shop. One low paid employee was doing diagnosis and two guys hired off the street were pulling and putting them back. No thanks. I would have been the only employee with any training at all.