I had a transmission problem, so i took my car to the shop where my brother in law works. He had the car for 2.5 weeks before i got it back last Wednesday night. it didn't make it more than a mile from the shop before it started acting up again. Had it towed to a dealership this morning. Dealer tells me that the transmission was overfilled by 3 extra quarts and that the transmission was filled from the wrong spot. Due to the failure of overfilling, he blew the transmission.

A new transmission is $5,000 for a used one and $7,000 for a new one. I can't afford to spend that much money on his mistake. Even if i could, i don't know if i should, as he's obviously not competent enough to be working with transmissions, and it would only be a matter of time before he ruins somebody else's transmission.

The obvious dilemma here is that when i tell the shop what happened, his boss won't be pleased...might even fire him. He's only been working at this shop a couple months. He's bounced around to a half dozen or so shops in the last couple years, and I have to wonder if this is why.

I can only think that I'm about to ruin our relationship with my brother in law. I was trying to help him out by sending business his way. What a mistake that turned out to be.