Seattle Transmission & Auto Repair

Spend a little extra time to find a shop that is certified by a national transmission association. Trust me, a little extra effort will save you a lot of frustration.

The looks of their shop is indicative of the quality of their work.



We had our 98 Nissan Maxima towed to them in March of 2007 because of clutch problems. They replaced the clutch, took our $750, and sent us on our way. Two months later we had to have the vehicle towed to them again because of clutch problems. They did not do anything to the vehicle and instead told us to pump the clutch pedal every time we get into the car before putting it in gear. We found that to be strange considering that a properly working clutch should not need to be pumped, but we complied. After several more months of constant clutch problems that pumping did nothing to fix, we finally found ourselves stranded with clutch problems again. This time we were in Portland Oregon. Enough was enough and I decided that Seattle/Highline Transmission was not competent enough to fix the problem so I had it towed to the local Nissan dealership. The dealership told us that the clutch had never been properly adjusted and the lack of adjustment caused pre-mature clutch failure. They put this information in writing and showed us the worn-down clutch plates (we kept the parts). We ended up spending another $800 dollars to get the clutch replaced again.



If Highline/Seattle transmission would have just looked under the hood the second time we towed the car to them then this could have been avoided. Keep in mind that it costs roughly $80 each time we towed the car to their location. The guys at Highline/Seattle transmission must have really thought it was funny when we left their shop the second time believing that pumping the clutch would keep us out of trouble.



Having had all my automotive patience used-up, I called Highline/Seattle transmission and told them what had happened. I wanted a refund or some symbolic gesture from them to help offset all of our problems.



I called several times and spoke with the same guy that I spoke with when we had the original work done. Each time we spoke he wormed around for several minutes trying to find a reason why Highline/Seattle Transmission had no responsibility in the matter. He said that he was not the mechanic that did not do the work on the car and that he was in the hospital back when the work was done. He tried everything he could to push the blame back on us. He said we drove too many miles, we waited too long to bring the issue up with them, etc… He would not even acknowledge that we ever towed the vehicle back to them the second time, even though I have a copy of the towing claim. He said something so the affect of “you people call all the time complaining about your problems…” Words like that make it obvious to me that they have a lot of unhappy customers.



He continued by ridiculing us for not calling them when our car was stranded for the third time for the same reason. He actually had the nerve to say that we should have had the vehicle towed from Portland to Seattle so they could work on it. He said I should not have had the Nissan dealership work on the vehicle even though Nissan was able to fix the vehicle on a Saturday, when Seattle/Highline Transmission was closed for business. We argued for a while and then he hung up the phone on me.



Choose your transmission people carefully! When your vehicle is broke down on the side of the road with transmission problems and you have to have it towed to a repair facility, you need to be absolutely sure that the mechanics that are working on your car or truck will actually take your problem seriously. Seattle/Highline transmission did not take our problems or our inconvenience seriously and as a result we had to purchase another clutch, pay more towing fees, rent another car for the duration of the repairs, and waste even more time on an issue that could have been resolved a long time ago.