NEW ENGLAND TRANSMISSION

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I made an appointment in person on a Monday, but they could not fit me in until 4 days later. After leaving my car there at 7:30 a.m. on Thursday, I phoned them at 2 p.m. and was told it was and quot;on the liftand quot; and they'd get back to me. When I phoned again 2 hours later, I was instructed to and quot;call back tomorrow and ask for Ryan.and quot; Around 9:30 a.m. on Friday I phoned and spoke with Ryan, who asked, and quot;what exactly is wrongand quot; with the car. My response was that it was no longer shifting smoothly into and out of and quot;Driveand quot;, and that I wanted to have the car checked out before the problem got worse. (I had explained this when I set up the appointment, so Ryan's emphasis here was on the word, and quot;exactly.and quot; Evidently he couldn't find much wrong.) I phoned back 5 hours later to see if they were done with the car (and if I would have it to use over the weekend). Yes, it was done. They had looked the transmission over, and taken the car out for a couple of test drives. Yet they couldn't find anything wrong with it. I was told, and quot;The transmission seems to be performing as one would expect from a car with 140,000 miles on it.and quot; My response was, and quot;Well, it seems that you've spent quite a while working on my car; what do I owe you?and quot; The answer, and quot;Nothing. Just come by any time and pick it up.and quot; Their checking my transmission was for free!
Regarding my scores above: My low and quot;responsivenessand quot; score is because New England Transmission NEVER phoned me about my car. Each phone call was from me to them (even when they said they would call). On the other hand, honesty goes a long way with me, and I would rather have an unresponsive honest mechanic than a responsive dishonest one. (Although they did not, they could easily have charged me for the hours they spent checking over my car.) My advice: If you have work done at New England Transmission in South Portland, Maine, be prepared to initiate all follow-up phone calls yourself. It is too early to know if I should rank them as competent. For example, if my transmission and quot;gave outand quot; tomorrow, I might conclude that they should have seen this coming. For this reason, I suspend judgment on the quality of their work (although I'll revise this review accordingly if my transmission's symptoms worsen soon). For now (other than regarding their lack of responsiveness), I only have positive things to say about New England Transmission.