Complaint Review: AAMCO FLAGSTAFF - KEVIN LINDSAY - Flagstaff Arizona

We went to Kevin's AAMCO company with a transmission that went bad on a trip to the Grand Canyon with my family. We had to have it towed from 20 miles south of Flagstaff, and unfortunately ended up in the hands of Kevin Lindsay. Kevin quoted me $5,887.48 to put in a reconditioned transmission for my 2006 Lexus RX330. That seemed quite high but we were in a pinch, in a different city with a non-functioning vehicle and needed to try and get it fixed. We ended up renting a car to continue on our trip. Once we returned to Phoenix the next day, we did some research and found that Kevin was charging about 3 times the going rate for the job we needed, so (as any logical person would) we contacted Kevin and told him to cancel the order and that we would just get it fixed in Phoenix. He agreed to cancel his shipment of the transmission assuming we would have a cheaper one shipped to him. We then found a transmission guy who would do the work for $2200, all in! So again, as any sane person would do, we called Kevin to tell him we wanted to tow it to Phoenix and would pay Kevin for his time thus far. He became obviously irritated and said he has 11 hours in it and that the car was in a condition where it cannot be towed. He even said it would fall apart on the tow truck in its current state and that it would take another 6-7 hours to put it back together. We told him that seemed quite high but we wanted a refund for the parts (about $4,000) but we would pay him for his time in taking apart the transmission. He became belligerent and said that if we wanted our money back we would need to drive to flagstaff and pay him cash for his time and then hung up on us. That seemed extremely underhanded, unprofessional, and possibly illegal.

We went back and forth with the Aamco corporate office – who basically could not do anything because all Aamco’s are “independently owned franchises.” At this point, he had our vehicle and our payment in full and was being completely uncooperative. Not knowing what else to do, we contacted the Flagstaff police department for assistance. They were helpful and called Kevin directly. Apparently, he not only yelled at the officer, but also flat out lied to him by telling him he received a letter from our bank stating that our payment was being reversed. (I wish it were that easy!) Finally, after help from the police department and a Senior Customer Service Rep from Aamco – he finally agreed to release the vehicle, and credit our card back for the price of the transmission but refused to budge on the time he supposedly spent on the car (without actually fixing anything) which was 18 hours! So $1800 and a lot of anguish later, we got the car towed from Flagstaff to a shop in Phoenix and STILL came out less than Kevin’s original quote! Moral of the story, read online reviews – if we read his existing reviews, we would have never gone to him in the first place. Lesson learned. 

Katelyn - Phoenix, Arizona