Truck repair day. Not looking forward to it. First, we pack up the trailer, because we need to dump the tanks. Go do that, and re-park it. Doesn’t take too long, so that’s good. Now to look for repair shops. We’ve been given the names of four. Check on Google, and S&S has the most reviews, 24, and all positive. Hmmm. That always makes me wonder. Precision has some bad comments, so I cut that off the list immediately, and Turbo something doesn’t give me a good feeling. Only other one is Scottie’s, with two five star and one 1-star. The one-star basically says “Hey, my previous one-star was deleted” – not very helpful. I decide on S&S. At first, I feel pretty good about this place, but soon I start to feel like I’m being scammed. I do, however, learn quite a bit about available replacement and upgrade parts for my transmission, so that’s a good thing. I also find out (after a LOT of phone tag) that my warranty is only good at the original shop, not nationwide. That is strictly the fault of Mastertech, the folks in Plano that had the transmission rebuilt. I say “had it rebuilt” for a reason. I took it to them, and asked if they could fix my transmission – they answered “sure”. I thought that meant they would do the work. Nope, and we’ll come back to why that’s a problem. The other thing that bothers me is that when I got the truck back from them, I specifically asked if I needed to bring it back for a check-up or anything, and was told “no, you’re good to go”. Well, it turns out that for the warranty to be valid, the truck needed an inspection two weeks after the rebuild. I’m not happy. BUT, even if I HAD had that done, because it was a wholesale job (done for Mastertech, not for me), the warranty is only valid at the shop that originally did the work! I’m REALLY not happy, because I specifically asked about a nationwide warranty, and was told “yes”. We’ll deal with that later.
Anyway. S&S finds the band for second gear out of adjustment (hmmm … maybe that two-week check-up would have avoided this?), and adjusts it. Doesn’t fix the problem. And I have no warranty. I’d been talking to the guy who rebuilt it originally (Jeff, at Plano Automatic Transmission), and he arranges for Scottie’s to honor the warranty, so we take the truck there. On the way, we stop to get a rental car. I always had good luck with Enterprise, so we stop there. Ah, yes, and how will you pay? Why, debit card, of course! Nope, sorry, we can only accept a debit card if it’s on a local address. REALLY? Cash? Nope, cash is no good – sorry! Off to Hertz, and there the debit card is no problem. But they have no available cars. ARGH!!!
Off to Scottie’s we go, have him take a look. I wish we had come here first. VERY professional, and he pulls up the codes on it – I see the code for my engine issue, a P0148. I also see a transmission code. Hmmm … the last guy (at S&S) said there were no codes for the transmission. Hmmm … now I REALLY feel like he had been trying to scam me!
Ok, long story short, we have to come back tomorrow to get a part replaced. The warranty? He’ll be happy to honor it! Unfortunately, this part was not in the original rebuild, so … not covered by the warranty. I get that. At least we’ll be fixed up and good to go!
We head for Walmart to get a few things, then go back to the canyon. Thankfully, no BOOM! tonight. No more until Friday, if we’re still here, but we probably won’t be. Next in line, Albuquerque, NM!