The complete story...
Here we go again. We’re dealing with a person who thinks that he’s entitled to special privileges just because he knows of the diesel forums and threatens he’ll go post all of the bad stuff about ATS that he believes he’s experienced.
How about I tell you the rest of the story – the part that Craig seems to have neglected to tell everybody on all of the forums. Of course he’s not going to tell you of the abuse that he’s put his truck through, or the fact that ATS has helped him out before.
Why on earth would anybody neglect to tell you the rest of the story do you think?? Perhaps it’s because of the fact that 99% of all negative attitudes towards ATS are there because of some disgruntled customer posting exactly what Craig has WITHOUT telling anybody the COMPLETE story, for if he had told the complete story, people would know that he’s just full of hot air without a leg to stand on.
So, as the story goes, when Craig bought his first transmission on October 6, 2005, he purchased it with a billet input shaft, Torque Converter, and Commander. Lots of people upgrade to a billet input shaft because as everybody knows, stock shafts leave something to be desired in the strength department.
Just so you are aware, because we at ATS shoot straight, there was a problem with the Commander in February, 2006. We sent out a CoPilot box to replace the Commander – an upgrade that we didn’t charge for, and sent a UPS return tag to send back the defective Commander.
In March, 2006, Craig wanted to upgrade his Arcflow to the new, later model because he didn’t like the early model – we sent Craig a replacement on March 13, 2006 with a UPS return tag to send back the early model Arcflow. We replaced the Arcflow 1 year, 5 months later, at no charge, and didn’t even charge shipping to him.
We tried to get the defective Commander and early model Arcflow back from Craig until April 17, 2007 – 14 months later. We finally had to send him to collections because he refused to return the defective part to us. We STILL have not received these items back.
So, anyway, on or about September 25, 2006 Craig broke the ATS Billet Input shaft in his transmission – nearly a year after installing the original ATS transmission. As most people know, if there is a defect in a product, the defect typically shows up immediately – not a year later. We covered the broken shaft (although we didn’t have to because of the terms of our warranty) – Craig upgraded to a full billet transmission at that time, wherein he purchased the ATS Billet Intermediate and ATS Billet output shafts.
Also, Craig broke a stock flexplate… now he has a Billet Flexplate. I’m not sure what he was doing at the time, but I’m sure it was something on the lines of washing his truck or pulling out of the driveway when it happened… Wouldn’t we all like to know?
So, now Craig has broken another ATS Billet Input shaft… He was driving around the block after washing his truck the first time he broke a shaft (after driving the truck for nearly a year), and this time, he was merely getting on the highway to go to work. We told him that regardless of anything, he would have to pay labor and shipping. We would assess the damage here and let him know what the cost would be to return the transmission to ATS standards. He told us that we would be covering the transmission under our ATS Warranty – period! At that time, we told him that we have our procedures and that before any determination was made, we would need to inspect the transmission. This wasn’t good enough and he demanded to speak to Clint.
The location of our warranty on
Restoring the layer structure... is, and always has been at
www.atsdiesel.com/warranty. It can also be found under the Technical Information page for all Transmissions and Torque Converters on our website. Although it’s true that our warranty has matured over the years (such as adding clutch pack failure coverage regardless of circumstance for ATS Extreme Transmissions) , as it has always been stated, since 2003:
“Transmission shafts are not covered by warranty on any transmission due to the capability of certain situations to cause stress-loads beyond the structural ability of the shaft”
What this means, in short, is that EVERY shaft has a limit – because it’s Billet does not mean that it’s unbreakable – it means that if you do break it, you’re trying way to hard (i. e. abusing your transmission).
We have an attorney on site a few days a week. As ATS is a quickly growing company, we, like any smart corporation, have legal representation. Ours just happens to come on-site every week so that we may be able to deal with issues from graffiti on the building walls to employee issues to issues such as this one. As some have stated here and elsewhere, you may just end up speaking with him if you try to defame ATS in a manner such as this – if you have an issue, make sure you are telling the whole story. If you have a valid warranty claim, you WILL be taken care of.
We at ATS are not infallible – we’re human beings, and as such, we make mistakes sometimes. We take care of our customers first and foremost. It just happens that you almost never hear the good, and most certainly always hear the bad.
The reason that ATS is growing so rapidly is do to the fact that we manufacture superior products, and our customer service is absolutely the best that can be had. Companies cannot grow without customer service and support, and as such, the offer to Craig still stands – get the transmission back to ATS for assessment of damage and we’ll tell you what it’s going to take to get the transmission back to ATS standards. It’s not going to be free, but it will be fair.
Now you have the complete story.
Joel Richards
ATS Diesel Performance, Inc
800. 949. 6002
Attention: TDR Forum Junkies 
