sending a letter to gm

[adc174]

i just wrote a letter to gm trying to recoup some of my money for the tranny problem can you guys read it over and let me know what you think...
April 1 2011


I purchased my 2010 Chevrolet Camaro on Aug. 1 2010 with under 4000 miles from Walters Elkland Chevrolet in Elkland pa, I received the car and everything seemed to be okay, I drove the car and put around 800 miles on the car when I started hearing a grinding issue with the transmission and what felt like a slipping clutch, I contacted Paul conte Chevrolet in Freeport NY, they were closest dealer to my home and had the car picked up and brought in for service on Oct. 29 2010….2 or so weeks went by and I never even heard a peep from them
I called the service guy Steve and he assured me the parts were on order and explained to me that usually when a car has an aftermarket exhaust installed they don’t touch it, I explained that this is how I purchased the car from a Chevy dealer only 2 months prior, he said we will take care of it cause the guy who runs service “felt like being a nice guy”, a few weeks later he called me to inform me that the completely dissembled the transmission and found no problem with it. I asked him didn’t you have parts on order? He said yeah but we wanted to dig in further, he said the car has an aftermarket shifter so we cannot warranty it anymore, I called gm service line which I was told by a few different people that it shouldn’t matter if they disassembled they should re assemble, I called for a rep to come down and look and after a few days Paul conte called me back to tell me they will not put anything together on the car unless I paid for it. i explained to them that I was a b service tech for Chevy for 5 years and went to college for automotive engineer degree, he rudely asked what’s your point, my point is if you say an aftermarket shifter voids warranty which is not the case because it is a cable driven shifter, the first thing to do when removing a trans in these cars is to disconnect the shifter from inside the vehicle….which means you knew before you tore my tranny out and apart it had this shifter, I should have received a phone call at that point to discuss….he then told me to “get this piece of shit out of my shop”
I called gm. service back and explained the situation and they told me that they can’t tell him how to run his business and if he was charging me, I had no choice but to pay it, he charged me storage of $650.00
And it required me to have car and all the parts brought to a transmission shop ,Banner transmission in Bellmore NY 11710. The tow was another 150.00 and the entire disassembled transmission was thrown in a gm bin and given to the driver, the exhaust ,tranny case and other parts were put inside the car
Not to mention the dent,dings and scratches my car received from that dealer
Banner transmissions explained to me that there was a tremec dealer around 90 miles away from my home and they would be the place to bring it ,so I arranged another 450 tow and had the car and parts brought to them.
My reason for this letter is that after everything I’m out of pocket

$650 for storage at the Chevy dealer
$150 for the tow from the dealer
$900 for the tow to and from the shop 90 miles away
$2995 PLUS TAX for the rebuilt unit
$2173.10 PLUS TAX for the other related parts (clutch,labor,missing parts ect.)
Total is 7281.55 for this and 6 months with no vehicle (no loaner)

I am a long time gm driver as is my family there are many corvettes, caddilacs,gmcs etc. in my family, no one can believe the run around I got from the dealer and the gm help line and the fact that I had to spend this type of money fixing something that should have been warrantied in the first place….
I have enclosed an additional letter from the tremec dealer explaining what they found and that it had nothing to do with the shifter in the car….i am looking to get this resolved as soon as possible and recoup my money…..it is an absolute shame that gm isn’t on top of dealers like this and there help line….you are my last resort in getting my money back other than giving my lawyer the green light and letting him contact the news like he suggested, nobody needs the headache of that…please contact me back at ********or ********…I appreciate you looking into this matter and resolving it for me.

[adc174]

should i add anything or take anything away?

[DarkneSS]

Let me get this straight, a certified GM dealer took apart your tranny and then wanted you to pay for it?

I think you should lawyer up man this seems a bit complicated and just a letter probably wont do anything.

You should clean up the grammar though btw.

[adc174]

been on going for 3 months now and i was told to send a letter with pics to a ceo at gm that i was able to get a fax number for

[BigCarrot]

Seems very diplomatic can't believe that Dealership treated you that poorly. Hope this all gets worked out

EDIT:

May want to format it a bit better. Just better spacing to make it easier to read. Other than that Stick it to em!

[DarkneSS]

I really wish you luck then man. Im with the guys above, the second they started treating me like that it would have been lawyer and the news asap.

[adc174]

[kennyo]

Wow- I live on long island-thank god I don't live near freeport.That man is right,this is beyond letters.Time to goto court.unreal

[LuckyWife]

Holy crap! That's how you got your car back!

I'd be in jail by now....

[adc174]

yeah believe me i wasnt happy and even more unhappy to shell out almost 8 grand...... if this was 5 years ago id be in jail, thank god i mellowed out a bit in my older age

[SlingShot]

You are getting screwed for sure. The car being low mileage, should of been Certified Used and carried the full remainder of the warranty or at least 12 months. GM should have covered it no questions asked, so long as there wasn't any tune or major alterations made.

[adc174]

the car was bought from a chevy dealer, it had exhaust, suspention work.ect just bolt on stuff...my point is isnt there a 90 day on used vehicles bougt from dealers?

[jkchambless]

Have your lawyer send the letter.

[bigsquirrel]

You'll probably get nowhere without a lawyer, it's to much money for small claims court unfortunately. You could go that route if you were trying to recover $3000 or less.