There's quite a difference in reviews on J&W lately, I will try to be as concise as possible so you, the reader, can understand some of the complexity involved in auto care and how that relates to my situation.
I towed my 98 T100 in for a clutch job. J&W quoted me the best price for a place that had the best reviews in service history. Checking in, J&W made me aware that they had to buy 3 different clutch kits because 2 had grooves in the pressure plates, which causes screeching and possible slippage. I was glad they inspected that and caught it. So the job took a bit longer than they thought, but that was understandable.
The technician informed me that the clutch is sticky because they didn't bleed the hydraulic system, which I was fine with. It was quite sticky, but I was driving to my dad's place in Montana, and thought if I could get it there, I could re-do the hydraulic system as per the technician's recommendation.
I did just that, and the stickiness went away, I was happy as a clam, and it got sticky again. I couldn't find out what was wrong, so I took it back to J&W, who found a leak in the seal of my brand new master cylinder. So I got another and replaced it, the stickiness went away, then came back again. This new master cylinder also had a leak apparently. I just asked J&W to fix it, which they did, and they OKed it with me to replace the master cylinder with an original part since the store bought ones seem to be so low quality.
J&W only charged me for the cost of the master cylinder, which I was very thankful for.
But something still wasn't right. The J&W tech drove it and said he thought they did something wrong with the clutch job. So they re-did the job as per their warranty.
After all this, I thought I was in the clear, drove to Eugene and back home (1hr each way) and when I got back, smelled a burning oil smell. Oil was all over the transmission and was burning on the exhaust pipe. I had it towed back to J&W. Apparently, a spring near the shifter got caught in part of the plate/seal on the top of the transmission, causing a leak in the seal and a way for oil to spray out in tiny bits per revolution, which added up to being a mess in over 2hrs of driving.
So J&W fixed the leak and refunded me towing costs.
I want to say that J&W went waaaay farther to help me, the customer, receive quality care and service than most auto shops I've dealt with. My father grew up in Detroit working on cars, has been an auto mechanic most of his life, and claims that he has never received this level of customer satisfaction follow-up, which is why he does most of his own work on vehicles. I'm not going to make excuses for the technicians; they are advertising their work and should be doing quality jobs the first time through, but we have to remember how people operate and make an honest living these days. The more vehicles a shop can see and repair, the more everybody in that shop is doing, and that incentive system will inevitably lead to situations like these, even with the most qualified techs.
The situation was more annoying for me because I live 1hr from town, but J&W did acknowledge that by picking up the towing costs, driving me to the bus station, etc. I would rather pay more for a job and have that shop back their work then have a shop overlook things like the faulty pressure plates, driving my vehicle and acknowledging they have to re-do their work, towing fees, etc. than have a shop deny that their work was faulty and pay them for nothing.
And sorry to get too deep into this, but I think it is becoming too accepted a trend to invest in low quality. If you want a shop to back their work, you need to pay for it, and if you do the math, it actually costs less in the long run, and you are putting skilled laborers to work at the same time.
Hope this helps. read more