Allison failure outcome - transmission repaire vendor
I would like o share a very positive experience I had with Transmission Instruments in Dallas TX area. First a little explanation.
I was stranded in Levanworth WA. in early Sept. As I pulled out of a camping spot my alarm sounded and I had a do not shift light and a completely inoperable shift pad on my Allison MD 3060. After doing all I could to diagnose the problem I called Coach-net who promptly sent a qualified towing company to take my coach to an authorized Allison repair facility in Wanatchee WA. Coachnet picked up the entire bill of a little over $700.00 to tow the coach. (Kudos to their staff)
After waiting much of the day to get a tech to start the looking process they spent several hours diagnosing the problem and checked the harness front to back. They finally figured out that they should hook up a computer to the diagnostic port and check the codes. The codes showed that there was an ECU malfunction. The tech removed what he thought was the ecu from the firewall inside the coach. After getting the numbers from the box they said it needed to be shipped from Allison and then reprogrammed by Pacific power in Seattle. Well things got a bit worse because it was Thursday afternoon before Labor day Allison would not ship the part until the next Tuesday after the holiday. Well what can you do we ordered the part and I rented a car. We went to the Oregon coast at Newport and stayed with the folks we were traveling with in their coach ( had a great time in Newport a must visit town). we returned Wednesday afternoon and the part came in Thursday morning the part was promptly installed and did nothing to correct the problem still stranded. After some additional troubleshooting the tech discovered that the part that was ordered and removed was not the ECU and in fact was nothing more than a Relay box. Now folks this is a Allison authorized repair facility and I was amazed that this mistake had been made. Come to find out the ECU is on the back of the touch pad mounted to the dash. At this point a scramble by this facility was under way to find an ECU I heard a number of $3000.00 + shipping. At this point I decided to get more involved and having asked for some help on RV.net I went back to some of the helpful comments and suggestions by this group. I found a reference to Transmission Instruments and to John Kopalek the owner. I called john after 6pm TX time and he answered the phone we chatted for a moment and the declared that he thought he knew what the problem was and that he could fix it if he had the ECU at his shop. It was Thursday a 4pm PST and time was running out for that day John promised that if I could get the part to him overnight that he would work on Friday and have it ready to ship Friday afternoon. I asked the repair facility to get the part boxed to ship and I went to UPS just down the steer and got the ECU on the way to TX. the next morning I followed up and Transmission Instruments ha received it. A few nail biting hours latter John called to say he had discovered and fixed a faulty power supply and it was ready to ship. Next problem was to get UPS to hang around for a Saturday overnight guaranteed delivery to their facility. We worked it out and on Saturday morning 10:30 Am I was waiting as the truck from Seattle delivered the overnight pkg to Wanatchee. Rushing back to the repair facility I installed the ECU/Touch-pad. It was with great anticipation as we started the coach and then the magic happened and we saw a normal neutral light as the do not shift light went out at this point tears of joy ran down my DW's face and it was if out sentence had been served and we were released. At this point I should fill in some info about the repair facility during the time the ECU was being repaired I sat down with the Mgr. of the facility we talked about the errors and in the end he took back the wrong part at no charge, no charge for the techs time and let us stay in his fenced lot and provided power for the time we were down No Charge. I cannot say anything bad about a facility that steps up to the plate owns that they were not correct and then forgives even more than they should.
The Transmission has preformed very well over the next 3,500 miles we completed our trip to Loomis Ca. the Lk. Tahoe and back home to Mi. The shifting is much better than before and we now hold 6th gear down to 59MPH where before it was near 65 as well as better down and up shifting.
Thanks to all of you that chimed in and sent helpful information. BTW the repair from transmissiom instuments cost $495.00 + the addition of shipping overnight.
Thanks to
John Kopalek and Transmission Instruments
3634 long prairie rd suite 108
Flower Mound, TX 75022
866-439-9779
I was stranded in Levanworth WA. in early Sept. As I pulled out of a camping spot my alarm sounded and I had a do not shift light and a completely inoperable shift pad on my Allison MD 3060. After doing all I could to diagnose the problem I called Coach-net who promptly sent a qualified towing company to take my coach to an authorized Allison repair facility in Wanatchee WA. Coachnet picked up the entire bill of a little over $700.00 to tow the coach. (Kudos to their staff)
After waiting much of the day to get a tech to start the looking process they spent several hours diagnosing the problem and checked the harness front to back. They finally figured out that they should hook up a computer to the diagnostic port and check the codes. The codes showed that there was an ECU malfunction. The tech removed what he thought was the ecu from the firewall inside the coach. After getting the numbers from the box they said it needed to be shipped from Allison and then reprogrammed by Pacific power in Seattle. Well things got a bit worse because it was Thursday afternoon before Labor day Allison would not ship the part until the next Tuesday after the holiday. Well what can you do we ordered the part and I rented a car. We went to the Oregon coast at Newport and stayed with the folks we were traveling with in their coach ( had a great time in Newport a must visit town). we returned Wednesday afternoon and the part came in Thursday morning the part was promptly installed and did nothing to correct the problem still stranded. After some additional troubleshooting the tech discovered that the part that was ordered and removed was not the ECU and in fact was nothing more than a Relay box. Now folks this is a Allison authorized repair facility and I was amazed that this mistake had been made. Come to find out the ECU is on the back of the touch pad mounted to the dash. At this point a scramble by this facility was under way to find an ECU I heard a number of $3000.00 + shipping. At this point I decided to get more involved and having asked for some help on RV.net I went back to some of the helpful comments and suggestions by this group. I found a reference to Transmission Instruments and to John Kopalek the owner. I called john after 6pm TX time and he answered the phone we chatted for a moment and the declared that he thought he knew what the problem was and that he could fix it if he had the ECU at his shop. It was Thursday a 4pm PST and time was running out for that day John promised that if I could get the part to him overnight that he would work on Friday and have it ready to ship Friday afternoon. I asked the repair facility to get the part boxed to ship and I went to UPS just down the steer and got the ECU on the way to TX. the next morning I followed up and Transmission Instruments ha received it. A few nail biting hours latter John called to say he had discovered and fixed a faulty power supply and it was ready to ship. Next problem was to get UPS to hang around for a Saturday overnight guaranteed delivery to their facility. We worked it out and on Saturday morning 10:30 Am I was waiting as the truck from Seattle delivered the overnight pkg to Wanatchee. Rushing back to the repair facility I installed the ECU/Touch-pad. It was with great anticipation as we started the coach and then the magic happened and we saw a normal neutral light as the do not shift light went out at this point tears of joy ran down my DW's face and it was if out sentence had been served and we were released. At this point I should fill in some info about the repair facility during the time the ECU was being repaired I sat down with the Mgr. of the facility we talked about the errors and in the end he took back the wrong part at no charge, no charge for the techs time and let us stay in his fenced lot and provided power for the time we were down No Charge. I cannot say anything bad about a facility that steps up to the plate owns that they were not correct and then forgives even more than they should.
The Transmission has preformed very well over the next 3,500 miles we completed our trip to Loomis Ca. the Lk. Tahoe and back home to Mi. The shifting is much better than before and we now hold 6th gear down to 59MPH where before it was near 65 as well as better down and up shifting.
Thanks to all of you that chimed in and sent helpful information. BTW the repair from transmissiom instuments cost $495.00 + the addition of shipping overnight.
Thanks to
John Kopalek and Transmission Instruments
3634 long prairie rd suite 108
Flower Mound, TX 75022
866-439-9779
