I don’t usually do this type of thing, but I’m so pissed off at this Cottman Transmission shop at 8817 S. Western in Oklahoma City that I’m going to publicly call them out. I’ve already notified the corporate office that I would be telling everyone I could to avoid the company altogether.

This past summer we took my son’s 1996 Mercury Sable to the above shop to have the transmission overhauled. I pegged the desk guy, Doug, for a liar pretty quick. You see, I had a coupon I printed from the Web site for 10 percent off a rebuild, but I didn’t tell him about it until after he quoted me a price. He told me I was supposed to tell him about the coupon first. I started to explain my reasoning, but he cut me off and said he’d honor the coupon.

Even with the coupon, Cottman’s cost was a couple of thousand more than a small independent shop in Norman, but we went with Cottman because of the longer warranty and the oversight I hope will be provided by a national chain. The rebuild was just over $2,000 with tax.

Two weeks ago my son started having trouble with the transmission again. We took it to the shop on Nov. 4, just before they closed for the day. After 4 p.m. on Nov. 5 I called and the same desk guy told me, "A lift just became available" and the car was on it then. He said they’d call when it was ready. Two days later, again after 4 p.m., I called back. Guess what. A lift had just become available and they’d just put the car on it. He’d get back to me Monday.

The litany of excuses continued all of last week. At one point he blamed his micromanaging shop owner for the delay. He promised the car would be ready on Friday. Friday came and the mechanic working on it was in the emergency room. Doug said, "We’ll get you out of here on Monday even if I have to fix it myself." Today is Monday. The car is not ready. I lost my temper with him today and pointed out all his lies. His response was that he can only do what he can do. In other words, your car is here, torn apart, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.

I know exactly what’s going on. We already paid for our job. The shop isn’t making any money fixing their own mistake now, so they’re pushing the warranty work off and taking new jobs. I told Doug I know what’s what they’re doing and he dared tell me they have the same cars in there that were there when I brought our car in. If that’s true, either his mechanics are retarded monkeys or they’ve been jerking each other off for two weeks instead of working. Puh-leeze!

Not having that car has been a huge inconvenience to us and to Alex’s girlfriend’s mom, who has been late to work a couple of times so that she could drive them to school. I’m just furious over being jerked around by this place. So, think about this if you ever need any transmission work done, and go somewhere — anywhere — other than Cottman Transmission.