Started without oil.

[RustyShackleford94]

Stay away from any business that has "Salvage" in the title, unless it's a junk yard.

That’s exactly what i was thinking... I would have dropped the agreed upon $1600 off in the form of a money order and taken my truck with the spare key if need be. They can eat the other $250 for the dent and running your truck without oil.

 

[mysticclam]

Ouch. Take that guy to court.
Had a buddy drive home from work in 76 302 mustang with no oil pressure. 5 or 6 miles. He figured it would be ok and was probably just low. We found the drive shaft to the oil pump completely broken in two. Car went on for years after that. My brother had the oil light come on in an 85 Toyota PU. Thought If he could make it up a hill he could coast home. Engine seized in about 30 seconds. If it didn't seize and there is no metal in the oil now it's probably picked up some wear but isn't any more likely to fail catastrophicly than it was. They still owe you something for it though in my opinion

 

[Madman54]

Yea it sucks you will probably have to get a lawyer involved. $1600 is an absolutely absurd price for a junkyard trans regardless. Transmission shouldn't have been more than a few hundred and maybe $400-500 to swap it so about half what they are trying to charge.

Also threaten to file a complaint with the BBB and every other website known to man...

All mechanics screw up sometimes, it's how they handle it that determines how good they are. If I were working on it I would have eaten the loss and not lied about it.

before i shut my shop down (thanks covid), i would charge 300 + parts to rebuild a trans like that one...
swapping it out with a junkyard trans (assuming they brought it to me), I wouldve charged like 100-200 (depending one the person) just to straight swap it and replace the input outputshaft seals and fill it up... and Im a competent mechanic with some integrity....
1600 dollars is about 1000 to much...really its about 1500 to much when you consider they had it in and out 4 times over 5 weeks.
and whats with the guy refunding the money you paid via card, because he wants cash?
Is this a real shop, or just some methhead in a garage? cuz if its a licensed business i would keep pushing it and pushing it, and make sure everyone knows the name of the mechanic and his integity level...
I once had to remove and reinstall a 700r4 3 times in a row beacuse i was doing something wrong... I was going to take the 300 dollars i was paid to do the job once, and pay someone else to fix my mistake. but then i decided to take one more crack at it, since at that point i was pretty familiar with the trans.... turns out I had the bellville spring in upside down. you live and learn, but you should always put your customers best interest first