Re: 80 Failure update + liability question

[Andrei Kogan <abk@phy.duke.edu>]

>The owner of the gear shop told me to bring it in. How much liability or
>responsibility does a repair shop have? The $500.00 (cost of original
>repair) I MIGHT get out of him won't get me a new box.

Dave,
first, congratulations on accomplishing this remarkable project. Second,
you don't have to buy this liability shit. I had a really ugly problem with
the 
transmission repair once ( a slush box, but doesn't matter for your
question) and
looked into it somewhat --- talked to a lawer. There is a whole bunch (an
unbelievable
amount, really) of rules/statements that control the customer --- service
vendor
relationship. I don't remember exact terms, (it has been 4 years) but one
of the inportant
points was that you , as a customer, have a right to  count on the fact
that the
service provided to you will deliver the result you expect. basically, the
guy tells you
the box will work after he fixes it, and it works. Even if a catastrophic
failure like the one you are
describing occurs after the STATED warranty is out, you may be able to go
after the  shop
if there are reasons to believe that whatever they did caused the failure
(hard to prove, but not impossible). Remember, anything the shop tells you
( this is what lawer told me) even including the warranty statements, is
just their POSITION on the issue and can be disputed in court if your
POSITION is different. 

Now, my experience was as follows: They rebuilt the box , I paid $980 , got
a 90 day warranty and it failed after driving for 2 months. took it back,
got it after 1 month, it failed on the way home. Took it back, they then
had it for 2 months  trying to put it together, but couldn't -- the diff
kept getting flooded. I was being very patient (hate to rush people who
work on a difficult problem, much less piss them off) all that time, but
finally told them that it cannot go like that forever and asked to discuss
our options. The guy did tell me that he could refund the differential
rebuild part ( about $300) because tha box itself was fine (although wasn't
insisting too hard, maybe was just probing, I dunno). I told him that I
would prefer a car with a working transmission, or at worst would agree to
total the car at his expense( was about $1700 at the time, and would really
screw me as I bought it for $1k and invested abunch of money into it by
that time --- the tranny was the last step to get it into a good reliable
running shape) . He asked for one more chance to fix it, I agreed and we
set the deadline at two weeks. A week later, he called me and told me that
he is giving up and getting  me a factory rebuilt differential from some
place in california to swap in place  of my old one. Next week, I had the
car which ran happily ever after. I didn't pay a dime besides the original
cost  of rebuild, although I was without a car from January till July.   

A couple more points ---he told me that he lost about 4K on that whole deal
( the price of a new diff plus the extra hours) but he went for it. I don't
know if he was just being professionaly honest ( quite possible) or he knew
 he was better off that way. he also told me he was insured against
glitches of this sort --- kind of like a medical malpractice thing , I had
no idea mechanics have that. So, question is, why would you pay for the
insurance 
if the customer has no legal way of getting you?

As far as the installation -being done by yourself, it may or may not
matter. My guess is that if it does get ugly, HE will have to prove that
the box blew up because you installed it upside down.

Overall, I would say, if the people in that shop seem to be reasonable,
talk to them and try to find a mutually agreeable solution. If the guy is a
real asshole, mention the Better Business Bureau.


Good luck,
Andrei

Sorry this is so long, but I have a great compassion for people who get
screwed by transmission repair shops. partly because the box is one place
on a car I cannot do a dman thing about and second because it is NOT FUN
living without a car for half a year when the nearest grocery store is 5
miles away. BTDT