My post stated that I give goodwill assistance. And we go to bat for customers every day. I wrote that post right after this occured, here are the facts, so you decide.
2004 silverado is towed in with 54,000 miles and the warranty expired May 2007.
Never been at my dealership before so I have no history on this vehicle other then what I see on the GM warranty system.
His warranty history shows no prior transmission repairs.
Transmission is completed burnt.
Customer did not pay the $1000 to $2000 for an extended service contract. Retail price for the replacement of the transmission is $2800.

I offered assistance to the customer. He would be responsible for the first $1000 of the repair. He then called me and the product every name in the book and stated that if I did not cover the repair 100% he would never buy another chevy. Now I have pretty thick skin and a customer yelling and cussing does not cause me to lose focus of helping the customer and thats why the post states each goodwill is given on a case by case basis.

So hhrcrafty when does a customer become responsible for their vehicle?Give me a guideline as to how far do I extend the warranty. How fair is it to the people that purchased extended service contracts for me to cover this repair 100%?

I don't know were you got that I have a mindset that the customer is never right. But this is the last time I will post on this issue. If you would like to continue this, please PM me.

 

The point is that you should contact GM and see if they will approve a complete goodwill repair for the transmission. There's no good reason why ANY transmission should fail at 54,000 miles. The tranny in my Sonoma failed at 35,800 miles and I never towed or drove that truck that hard. If you want your customers to be satisfied, you need to go to bat for them. You have the power to be their advocate on getting this stuff repaired--especially when GM is covering that exact same transmission for 100,000 miles on vehicles that were built a couple years later.

The other reason why I have this mindset that the customer is never right is because I was burned on my last car--a 2002 Blazer. Started having problems with the Passlock system, but every time I'd take it in they'd replace the fuel pump or relays or something else that was never related to Passlock. The warranty finally expired and the problem was never fixed. We finally took the car over to a friend with a Tech II. He ran the codes, sure enough they came back as Passlock faults. Took the car back to the dealership, they ran the codes again and sure enough they finally found the problem that I'd been telling them about for 3 years. Except that now that it's out of warranty, it's going to cost $2,500 to repair. BTW, I had taken the vehicle to THREE different dealerships trying to get the problem fixed by this point.

I gotta say, if my Dad wasn't working for GM at the time, I would have gone Toyota or Honda. I was furious and looked at trading the car. They said they'd give my $5,000 for a three-year-old Blazer. I went to a friend in Iowa, they gave my $9,500 and I drove off with the HHR. I did buy the extended warranty and sure enough, the car has been trouble free for 52,000 miles.