Shift Rite Transmissions

My friend regrets the day he took his transmission to Shift Rite in Kankakee to rebuild. It has been a nightmare dealing with these people over a problem that turned out to be their fault in the first place. If they had just dealt with it immediately it would have been better for everyone, but their denial of responsibility made the entire situation more complicated and painful for everyone. Instead of a loyal customer, they have turned him into an upset and frustrated one. He regrets he ever trusted these people. A more suspicious man would say that skin color was the issue, but I think these clowns are just incompetent.

It began with a relatively routine rebuild; he gave them his 1999 528i automatic transmission to rebuild, and had an involved conversation with the owner Brett Borelli about the entire system and the problems he was encountering with it. he had already replaced all 5 solenoids, and as the transmission was still acting up he thought it best to take it to a shop to be taken care of, and had heard that Shift Rite did good work. Unfortunately that did not happen to him. What happened to him instead was a three-month nightmare and a lot of wasted money.

The problems began once he picked the transmission up and re-installed it in my BMW. Even after they “rebuilt” it, would not shift from first to second gear (or higher) without slipping. Since it was just serviced, he had the BMW towed back to the shop, so they could take the transmission out and find out where the problem was. The owner Brett initially blamed him, saying that one of the solenoids he installed was in backwards. What doesn’t ring true there is that my friend told him about the solenoids (I was there), and a rebuild would have at least checked them.

It turns out the solenoids were fine and he was just casting blame. Over time as the evidence of their sloppiness and poor work became more evident, the customer service deteriorated to the point where Brett would actively avoid him when he went to the shop.

It was obvious they didn’t do anything but a cursory look without even working on it the second time because the car had to be towed there yet again for them to go back over their work again. They eventually discovered they had misaligned a bushing upon the initial rebuild. This wasn’t even the error they tried to blame him for in the first place! It took a total of 3 trips over almost 3 months and several hundred dollars in towing (that they refused to pay for, even though all the extra work was due to their mistake). Their bad workmanship is only outmatched by their bad customer service. he is sorry he ever took his transmission there, and would strongly caution anyone else from doing so.