Joe Sirugo is THE BEST for transmissions.
ABSOLUTELY DO NOT GO TO GERMAN TRANSAXLE IN BEND OREGON.
I should've read my warranty with German transaxle...
($60/hr up to$500 maximum if something goes wrong)
Nobody works on transmissions for under $90/hr and you definitely can't remove and replace a transmission for $500. It is MUCH more than that.
Joe and Eric will beat their price and give a better warranty guaranteed.
This is my story about German Transaxle....
I'll try to keep this short and to the point.
I purchased a rebuilt trans from GTA and drove my VW Eurovan RV (see photo) to the east coast to visit my mom and my 90 year old grandparents.
By the time I got from California to New Jersey the transmission failed. A bearing started making an incredible grinding noise and was getting louder and louder every mile.
So there I was, stuck in Jersey in the middle of the winter.
I exhausted a multitude of expensive transport options. I needed to swap the faulty transmission for a new one. The most logical option was to have GTA send a new one to a shop in Jersey and to send the old one back.
GTA absolutely WOULD NOT send me a new transmission until they had the old one in their possession. (??) It made me feel like they didn't trust that I would give them my old core back?
What do I know? I don't know how things go in the world of used transmissions.
At any rate, no shop in Jersey was going to let my RV sit on their lift for 3 weeks while I shipped the old one and waited for a new one. Every shop reasoned that an immobilized lift would cost them thousands of $$ and apparently you can't just take out the transmission and move the vehicle off the lift, because the transmission bolts into the sub-frame and things get real loosey-goosey when you take the transmission out.
My other option was to flatbed my RV from coast to coast. The cost for that is astronomical. I didn't have an extra $10,000 laying around.
I seriously thought I was going to lose my RV ($30,000).
I ended up ditching my plan to see family and had to limp my RV to a storage yard and fly home ($400) to CA and get back to work.
2 months later I formed a plan that I think no sane person in their 40's would do.
I talked to one of the transmission shops I had talked to and asked them if they would help me save my RV.
He thought I was crazy but he was aware of my position. He said he didn't want to see me lose my RV and if I really was going to do it, he would let my vehicle sit in his lift for 8 days, no charge.
PCT Transmissions
Pompton Plains, NJ
Joseph Sirugo
He rebuilds and guarantees better prices, better warranty %.
(973)628-0678
Anyways, I flew back to Jersey ($400), rented a car, put the old transmission in the back of the rental and drove and slept next to a transmission on the side of the interstate for 8 days (see photo) from Jersey to Bend and back to Jersey. ($800 rental + 7,000+/- miles of fuel)
GTA inspected and agreed that their product failed. They said they weren't going to charge me the $1100 +/- for the damaged parts but they WERE going to deduct the mileage I put on the old transmission from the new transmission's warranty. (??)
I was really surprised when they told me they could charge me.
The owner helped me load the new transmission into my vehicle and after seeing my sleeping bag next to it, laughingly said "now, get to work"...
I then drove all the way back across the United States.
This an unemotional, factual account of a 5 month ordeal from me finding GTA online, getting my old transmission replaced with them, having the new transmission fail, almost losing my RV and, against all odds, figuring out a solution.
Like I told GTA, if I owned their company, I would have sent my customer a new transmission without question right away and done everything in my power to make it right.
I guess since they have the market cornered on the west coast, they don't really have to worry about that.
Either way, my experience with GTA was costly, frustrating and time consuming. (I did not include the $$ I lost for taking time off work either.)
I don't hold grudges, but as a consumer, I feel it my duty to unemotionally relay to other consumers the facts here.
My new transmission has performed well, but I would strongly encourage anyone working with GTA to:
***READ YOUR WARRANTY***
This can happen to you. read more