DO NOT GO HERE and here is why. August 2016, my transmission went out in my truck. I was going to have it towed to a shop in blue island, when the tow truck driver told me to take it to ALW because they do AAA discounts and I was a member. He also said they did transmissions I was like okay kool. They were able to find me a used transmission with 100k on it awesome, installed and with my discount was around 1400 dollars they were 1,000 dollars cheaper then any other shop. I was very thankful because I'm in college and don't have a lot of extra money. The trans came with a 6month warranty through the shop and through AAA I had a 2 year warranty on the labor. Great I thought but no......
A year later and a few months, (last week) I leave IL and move back to my home in CA (a drive I did before in my same truck). Well my car starts smoking while in the middle of no wehere in Wyoming, then boom the trans went out. Long story short, I had my truck towed to the nearest AAA certified shop 86 miles away. Come to find out my transmission went out. trans fluid everything spilling. but not only that, the mechanic showed me that it failed because of HOW it was installed. When it was installed they bent my flex plate, and left out IMPORTANT bolts. my torque converter bolt was missing, bell housing bolt missing, dipstick bolt missing. My front pump bearing had spun on the shaft and made seal leak which ultimately caused my transmission to break down.
So basically here I am 1500 miles away from IL and I'm being told that my transmission job was botched. I called ALW and spoke to the owner to inform them of what happened, not to ask for a refund or anything but to let them know they screwed up. The owner said that there was no way it was installed incorrectly, that they wouldn't have left off bolts, that it had been a year and they must have fallen off. because I drove a year with the transmission working fine, so all of that my bent flex plate everything wasn't them. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? how can there be THAT many bolts missing and a BENT flex plate. this is all part of the transmission! They were the only shop to touch my transmission. These bolts didn't fall off. They weren't put on in the first place! Bottom line, the owner didn't seem to care, didn't apologize, just said that it wasn't there fault that all of that was missing. So I just spent 2800 dollars and got a transmission and a FULL review of my car and every bolt/nut missing documented. Pictures of my transmission and how it was installed and my bent flex plate, everything documented. I am now going to be submitting a claim to the better business bureau.After all of that I called AAA and informed them of what happened and since my trans labor was under warranty, they told me to go back to ALW who did this in the first place. I was like NO. NO ONE should ever go to this shop for ANYTHING. These people are careless. Yes, they are cheap, but they are cheap for a reason, they don't know what the hell they are doing. read more