Thread:Talk:Jake's Transmissions/strange diagnosis incident

We recently had a strange incident with Jake's.

Three years ago they rebuilt the transmission on Janis Jalopy, and it had been fine. Back in August, we noticed Janis seemed to be having difficulty getting into gear, so we took her in for a transmission checkup at Jake's -- worried that maybe we had allowed the transmission to go too long between services, and it was in trouble again (the last time it gave this symptom, the next step was that it began to slip out of gear... and had to be rebuilt).

Jake's told us that the transmission needed another rebuild... and although the mileage on it was still within warranty, the warranty was only good for a year, so this would cost another $2500 plus $500 for some kind of shifter cable thing (I don't remember the details).

The guy at the front desk admitted that this was a mystery to him. He also made it clear that there didn't seem to have been any neglect on our part; the transmission would not be due for service for at least another 10k miles.

We were considering scrapping the car, not wanting to rebuild the transmission yet again, but since it was still driveable (it wasn't yet slipping out of gear), we thought we would take it to our regular mechanic, Allen's Wrench, and get a second opinion.

Allen's Wrench told us they couldn't find any problems with it, and the transmission fluid was clear. They recommended against even having the fluid changed.

So what's going on at Jake's? Did they mix up Janis with another car? We've considered approaching them about this, but aren't sure what to say. It also seemed wise to give Janis a few more weeks of driving just to see if anything else happens that might clarify the situation (e.g. the transmission gets worse and it turns out Jake's was correct).

For the record, here's what we said about Jake's in 2005: We've used Jake's for many years now, as have other members of our family, and have been quite happy with the service. One positive point is that Jake's will not recommend repairing a transmission if the vehicle does not seem to be worth it. Rating: recommended -- 13:02, 5 December 2005 (EST)