Lake Oswego Transmission

NO BUSINESS AT ORIGINAL ADDRESS NOW. Business was sold in mid 2013 to same owner of Todds Import Automotive on nearby Pilkington Road, and is now being operated there, by his mechanics.
Previous owner, Ken, of Lake Oswego Transmission purchased Tigard Transmissions over on Hwy 99.
Check to see if the reviews here are for the old business operated by Ken, now at Tigard Transmissions, or for the new owner/​operator of it at Todd’s Import Automotive. choose accordingly.
We were clients of Ken’s before the sale of the business, and will remain so at Tigard Transmissions. They did an excellent job [ five stars] with an improved torque converter and full transmission rebuild in a vintage full size jeep with a Turbo-​hydromatic 400.

I must admit that I have a generally stereotypical attitude when it comes to auto repair businesses. I assume they’re all going to try to take advantage of me and my wallet simply because, well, they can. I’m very happy to report that Lake Oswego Transmission is not one of those shops and definitely renewed my faith in the industry.
I recently bought an ’87 Ford Tempo and had noticed some transmission issues for a couple of days and just kept hoping they would go away. Yeah, right. Coffee in hand and about to head to work, the old Tempo decides that she’s had enough and told me so by not shifting past 1^st gear. Not knowing where to turn and completely frazzled I recalled seeing one of those local coupon magazines in my mail a few days earlier. I sifted through my recycling bin and found their ad and gave them a call. The owner Ken told me that he was looking at a pretty full schedule that day but if I could limp my car in he would try to fit me in and see what the problem was. Within minutes of showing up at the shop Ken had my car in their very clean facility and popped the hood. Seconds later he found the problem, a broken dohicky/​thingamajig that was an easy and inexpensive fix. I was thrilled but only for minutes, unfortunately. Ken offered to also put the old girl up on the lift and do a visual inspection since I was there anyway. Of course, I couldn’t get off so darn easy as he showed me an obviously blown cv joint/​transaxle thingamabob. It was painfully clear that my girl needed some love and I was delighted when Ken gave me the estimate for the parts and labor (providing he didn’t find any additional problems) and said it should be done the same day.
So, I managed a ride to work and left the old girl with Ken and waited for the dreaded call where the guy tells you that she needs a complete overhaul and that it will take a few days and cost more than I make in a week. That didn’t happen. Instead, Ken called me and told me the old girl’s tranny was working just fine and gave me the good news that he was right in line with the earlier estimate. The story gets even better, however. My car was missing/​hesitating badly before I brought it into the shop and I told Ken about it when I dropped her off. With my limited mechanical skills I managed to replace the fuel filter, spark plugs, distributor cap and rotor a few weeks prior but nothing I did fixed the problem. When Ken called me he told me one of the cylinders was dropping and that he’d be happy to try to find and fix the problem. He found that I had a bad plug wire, slapped a new set of them in and got my old girl purring like a kitten again. He even stayed late to get the work done for me and did it all for what I considered a very fair price.
A long-​winded story, I know. But I just want everyone in the Lake Oswego/​Tigard/​Tualatin area to know just how good the service was, how fair and honest Ken was and that I will definitely refer my friends and family to him in the future.