Dan's Transmission Co Inc

I hate to leave poor reviews for smaller businesses, but I try to review all the local businesses I use. Unfortunately, this time I can't provide a good word. I had trouble finding somewhere to take my Subaru Outback, and Dan's Transmission was one of the two shops in town that told me they could work on it. I read some good reviews and decided to give them a try. After calling on a Tuesday, initially, they said they were too backed up to take me and to try back later that week (no problem). I called Thursday, and the employee who answered said they now had time to look at it that day. I emphasized that it would be nice to at least know what was up with it on the weekend as that's when I work and I need a car for my job. The shop didn't call me before the weekend, and throughout the next week I called several times, several of which were either not answered and not returned when I left messages, or were met with something along the lines of "we haven't had a chance to look at it yet." They said one of their employees had an emergency midway through that week, which I do understand. However, the lack of communication I received from Dan's Transmission was embarrassing. I had to call daily to get any information about my car. On one call, I was told they drove my car, which sounded great as they would actually experience what I did when I drove it. The first time I was told this, the man who answered the phone that day said that nothing happened when he drove it and that he wasn't sure anything was wrong with it at all. This was on the 8th day of being there. I told him the story again of when it started having issues, what codes came up, and what I thought the issue might be. It made me wonder if he even actually drove the car, or just said that to get me off his back and stop calling. Only then did I get the ETA of Monday (11th day) that I would hear back and they'd get to it over the weekend. After 11 days, I finally received word (and received my first call) from Dan's Transmission about my vehicle. I was told it was exactly what I told them I thought it was based on my research of the codes, and needed a valve body replacement to fix my transmission. They told me I could come pick it up, as they advised I take it to the Subaru dealer to get it done. After all this time, I waited 11 days, missed classes, had to call out of work for two weekends, and had to pay a $300 diagnostics fee for it to sit in their shop and have someone look at it for supposedly 3 hours (charged for $100/hr). When I got in my car again to go home, I noticed that both wires connected to my dash camera were unplugged. Not at the outlet, but at the camera, clearly trying to avoid being filmed. Everything else in my vehicle was still plugged in. Take that as you will. Overall, the employees were very polite in person but unfortunately they didn't have my needs in mind when they failed to communicate with me about my vehicle and did not work on it for days at a time. I felt unimportant and frustrated when I would call, leave messages, and then be told that my messages had not been listened to. I wish I had just taken it to the dealer in the first place, because now I have not only lost money from them, but was unable to get to my place of employment as well, all of which the employees were aware of as I mentioned this in my calls and messages. I told them exactly what I thought the problem was (which is what it ended up being) and they told me they could do it, but instead kept my car for over a week only to send me to the dealer anyways. I was hoping I'd find a local mechanic I want to go back to, but I'll never end up at Dan's again. I hope others have a better experience than I did.
Dec 28th, 2023

Aug 4th, 2023

Great Shop !!
Jul 31st, 2022

Really high quality people and workmanship. Highly recommend Dan's to all the river valley. -Logan
Jul 16th, 2022

Jun 7th, 2022