In June of 2011, my wife and I took our 2002 Acura CL to Grisham to have our transmission looked at, and we were told that it needed to be rebuilt. Grisham gave an initial estimate of $1,800, then said it was actually going to cost $3,429.57. When I inquired about an extended warranty, I was steered away from getting anything more than the standard 6-month warranty, being assured that things rarely go wrong after that point.
When we requested an itemized receipt (the description of repairs was vague at best), we were told it would cost $15 extra. After questioning him on that, he didn't make us pay for it.
We were charged for 18 1/2 hours of labor, but the car was only there for 14 1/2 open business hours, even though there were more cars than employees.
Over the next few weeks, however, we continued to notice that it seemed to be shifting funny. I called Grisham (7/11/11) and mentioned that it was shifting hard, but he dismissed my concern, saying that was because all the parts were tight. It continued to run so poorly that we took the car back in a few weeks later (8/2/11), and we were told once again that it was shifting properly. Our check engine light came on and we were told by our regular mechanic that it was a transmission code (unfortunately, our mechanic cleared the check engine light before we took it to Grisham, so it wasn't possible to know exactly what went wrong).
On 5/27/12 (less than one year after the repair), the transmission gave out while we were driving 75mph on the highway. There was a good deal of smoke and a horrible burnt smell. When we finally coasted to the next exit, we had to get the car towed to a mechanic, where we were soon told that the transmission was "cooked." We had it towed from southern Indiana to Grisham's Transmission in Nashville on 6/1/12, and we were left waiting outside of the shop until the employees returned from a long lunch break around 1:25, though their voicemail message says they take lunch from 11:30-1:00.
They couldn't find our invoice in their files, despite the fact that the repair had occurred less than a year before. After a couple days, Grisham offered to fix the transmission for "just the price of parts," saying he would try to keep it at no more than $800. The part was a torque converter, one of the parts he had supposedly replaced the year before. Our itemized receipt from the first fix said the part cost around $300. We ended up going through a trusted mechanic instead, and they quoted us $800 to fix the torque converter, which included $500 worth of labor.
Once our mechanic got into the transmission, however, he said it did need to be rebuilt again, and he did it for about half the price Grisham had charged us. He also mentioned that some of the seals had been improperly installed and that it looked as though the torque converter had just been painted black the last time and potentially not replaced at all.
For all these reasons and for the overall attitude we felt we got from Grisham at every step, we would not recommend going to him for transmission work. We even went back to him to explain our experience and tell him that we couldn't recommend him, and he basically just said we could leave a negative review but that he would come back and refute everything we said and that people would understand his side. I guess that's one way of looking at it, but it didn't strike us as anything near the customer service he touts on his website:
"...you can have peace of mind that when you trust Grisham's Transmission Center with your vehicle that your transmission issue will be quickly diagnosed and properly serviced the first time. We don't believe in second chances when it comes to transmission repair. We stand by all work performed in our shop 100% and guarantee your satisfaction. Your car needs to be in proper working order at all times and you can trust the experts at Grisham's Transmission Center to keep it that way." read more
