Engine/Transmission (1998.5 - 2002) Problems with DTT

[Halfbakediesel]

This is a thread that i have been thinking about for a month or so. I am not out to slam people. And I dont dislike anybody at DTT. I do not want to stretch the truth or the facts. hopefully I can say this in a way that I get back useful thoughts on how to precede with this. Or maybe I am the one in the wrong. Before I decided to go with DTT tyranny I researched for about two months and decided to go with them because I could not find anybody that was not satified with their transmission. I know their is alot of people out there that love DTT trannys and would not go with any thing else so my goal here is not to get those people all worked up.



I bought DTT transmission back in November of 2005, received the transmission around the end of January. A local transmission shop installed the transmission. This was a manual to Auto conversion. Bought all new parts from the Dodge dealer, wiring harness, brackets. Any of you who have tried this knows there is a lot involved. Once the transmission was installed it would not come out of limp mode. The transmission shop and I beat are heads together for about a month. I took it to the dodge dealer and had them put it on the DRB and started tracing wires because I was pretty sure it was electrical. And it turned out that the new wiring harness had two of the wires that ran from the PCM to the transmission were switched around. Brand new wiring harness supposedly for that year. During this time Bill was a great help and spent a lot of his time on the phone with me and transmission shop. The transmission ran great for a month and a half and then Blew up. I called Bill and he said send the transmission to him and if I payed the shipping, fluids and torque converter to be gone through he would take care of the rest. After he received the transmission he called me and told me I had to haul the truck up to him, For him to warranty it he wanted to install it him self to make sure that it was installed correctly. I agreed that was a good Idea. At this time the amount of money spent was almost 15,000. $7500 for the original transmission. So I hauled the truck up to him. He changed a few things around for me things i asked him to do. He was not able to finnish that day so I went back home about a 10 hour trip. Asked them to put a bill together for me so I would know what to expect. A week later I went back up to canada to pick up the truck. Everything sounded positive and was working well. The bill was about $2600 US. dollars. It was more than I expected so I gave him $1500 and took the truck. It was nice of him to let me take the truck before the full amount was paid.



Once I got the truck home over the weekend I noticed the transmission shuddering. the transmission never went over 140 degrees. So I called Bill and he said that was common for the targe converter to do this told me to change out the fluid and add royal purple and lube guard. When I dropped the pan I noticed that there was a lot of debree in the pan. I talked to a few transmission shops and they said I had problem at this point I am starting to get a sinking feeling. The torque converter stoped shuddering. And then started having shifting problems. So I called Bill and talked to his secretary she said that he would get back to me. She called me back and wanted to settle up on what was owed. I didn't have a problem with that but said I wanted to talk to Bill.

She hung up on me. So I called her back she answered and asked what I wanted I told her I needed talk to Bill since he and Stephen were the one that sold it to me. She told me Bill had my number and hung up on me. Just to give you a time frame. I got my truck back and the end of april of this year. In May after changed out the fluid I dyno the truck and put down 530 with a bad pump still haven't changed out pump have had other things on my mined. I had not dragged or sled pulled with this transmission. I dont think I am running more horse power than this transmission can handle. Now I am getting ready to rebuild the transmission and am looking at about $4000. 00. Who wants to buy a DTT transmission with low miles on it!! My real question is, am I really the only one that has had this problem? Now I am getting people that to not like DTT's concepts that say they have had a lot of problems with them of course most of them are competitive shops so it is hard to say I still owe DTT. But I would rather use it towards my lawyer. So good or bad I would like to here opinions. Hey who knows maybe Bill will pick up the phone.

 

[NoSeeUm]

Wow... .



Discouraging.

 

[klaybus]

Wow! I'm speechless, well kinda. I've been very happy with mine & no problems what so ever. Just really not sure what to say... ... Best of luck.



Clay

 

[DamonL]

Customer service

Customer service is the single biggest priority for any company. Fire the secretary! Sounds like she needs to be taught phone etiquette. You are only as good as your last job. Your name may carry you for a while but it will come full circle and put a big bite in that a**. I have spoke to Stephan and Bill in the past and gained a lot of knowledge from Bill and had a problem corrected by Stephan pretty quick by a distributer he has. (I actually got a call from the distributer to chastise me) OL how tacky was that. But, money is what makes the world go round you have spend a lot of green and WE can chose where we want to spend it. Since somebody has your number and has not called you in a reasonable amount of time. If you have followed up with attempts to make things right and still no resolution then I say cut your losses and go with another shop. I walk a fine line when cash is involved someone tells me they will do something in a certain amount of time then do it!

 

[shawn huizenga]

I've had nothing but good luck with my trans and I felt the customer service was top notch when I had it installed up in BC. With that being said, if your story is completely accurate it sounds a little on the side of poor business practice. When I'm unhappy with the service at a business I tend to go elsewhere, but I wouldn't expect them to forget about the money you owe. What you have now is a broken transmission that hasn't been paid for in full, they may be more apt to deal with you on warranty/repair if it was. Either way its a tough situation and to be honest I wouldn't know exactly what to do either. I tell you one thing, I wouldn't exactly be rushing to the post office with the money until I had some confidence the problem was going to be taken care of.



Shawn

 

[Halfbakediesel]

The way I feel is with shipping and taking the truck up to them I have about $11600. 00 into it. DTT has $9500. 00 of that. And owe them another $1200. 00 Minis the $250 for returned shipping since I picked up the transmission. I have a piece of metal with a couple billet shafts. So far they are ahead. They know if they warrenty the transmission they would be out alot more so the easiest thing to do is hope I take care of it. And leave them alone. What really pisses me off is that for the money I have into it I have not been able to abuse it. If I had been drag racing and sled pulling I might feel like I would of got something for my money. And I know every couple of years I would be rebuilding the transmission. Not every couple of months. I know ****** off everyone is about replacing vp44s. try a couple of trannys in a row.

 

[Stefan Kondolay]

This post is being put up as dictated by Bill Kondolay.



To make everybody perfectly clear the secretary is not ever going to be fired her name is Shanti Kondolay and she is my wife.



Joel Hardin be proud of who you are. When you left your home to come and pick up your truck you had no intention of paying me what you owed.



When you shipped the transmission to me to look at for you the first thing we noticed was that you had stripped every pan bolt out of the unit and you claimed that is how we shipped it to you. When I tore the unit apart I noted that EVERY SINGLE CLUTCH in this transmission was fried. Along with the clutches the carnage included destroyed rear planetary gear, destroyed 4th gear piston support, destroyed pump assembly and destroyed intermediate shaft. At this point we knew that there was no way that this kind of damage could happen unless this transmission starved itself for oil. I said bring me the truck something is definitely wrong and I am not going through this again I want to know why this happened.



When your truck arrived the first thing I noticed was the transmission coolers were hooked up with heater hose. At this point we knew it was not going to be a one day install.

When we had the transmission installed and went to hook-up the aftermarket shifter you put in we noticed it had the wrong shifter arm on the transmission. You informed me the shifter arm did not come with the shifter that is what you had. Installing the wrong shifter arm with the aftermarket at least explained why the transmission was destroyed the first time. At this point Mr. Hardin we told you to go home and send us the proper shifter arm that came with the shifter as we could not finish installing the transmission without the proper shifter arm. This was the second time you lied to me. The first time was the pan bolts deal, the second being the shifter arm did not come with the shifter. The electrical hanging all over the place left us quite speechless.



Just so people understand this, I completely re-built this unit from the ground up including new torque converter and new flexplate including all the new hard parts he damaged . We had to install a new shifter because the idiots that installed the original shifter, had completely torn apart the original shifter they bought and welded and extended the selector arm. We obviously had to re do the cooling system as it was completely contaminated and put together with heater hose. When you took the truck from our shop you were going to finish the electrical work and pay the balance for all the extra stuff that had to be done. Like the coolers in the bumper, the new shifter, the cooler lines that had to be put in instead of the heater hose.



I have bent over backwards for my customers as no one is perfect. Sometimes our customers make mistakes and sometimes things just happen.



As I told you Joel when you first asked me about this conversion job. It is a big job especially if you are not mechanical and I advised you not to do it.

People don’t always listen to me and that is fine, even after all that happened I tried to help you. My staff, and I spent over 100 hours with you on the phone in the span of your project. My dealer Mass Diesel originally got involved trying to figure out some of your electrical issues which ended up being the wrong wiring harness and computer for the symptoms he chased down. Once we saw the truck we knew that was only part of the electrical mess you had going on.



Joel you have the distinction of being the first person to steal from DTT as nothing leaves our shop without being paid for. I am not even going to dignify the numbers you are quoting with an answer as like the rest of the post you put up it is designed try and discredit our company.



I will say this to the customers that gave up their shop time so we could try and help this guy, we appreciate it. To Mass Diesel who took his personal time to help with his electrical diagnostics we appreciate it. I am done with this mess of a project that you took on and have tried to put on everyone that has tried to help you. Guys reading this can believe whatever they want.



The original transmission failed because of what you did with the shifter. But that is ok because even if it had survived the shifter by some miracle it would have been done in heater hose you used for cooler lines. What bothered me the most Joel and maybe it is because I am old school is that I went way beyond what was required of me and my staff. You left your home planning on stealing from me and now you want help. It is never going to happen. We don’t need or want customers that would do this kind of thing or condone it.

I hope whomever you choose to deal next reads this at least he has a heads up.

 

[LAMiller]

I can say that my experience w/ DTT has been outstanding - and although not everything has been perfect like a few burned up govener pressure silenoids, torque converter shutter, ect. - when I call them w/ the problem, Bill took time to explain what is happening and told me what I need to do, check, etc. and in time solved the problem! From my experience most of my problems have been caused by Dodge's electrical issues and not the actual hardware in the trans! - and I have over 50 passes at the track w/ 500+HP in the last year and 3mo. since I've had the trans and still shifts like when I got it.



Lavon

 

[OL RATLR]

I would just like to say Bill and Stephan helped me a whole lot of times

on my DTT rebuild geting it the way I wanted it. And I feel sure I could

call them today and get top notch service. It is good you can hear both sides

of the story thanks Stephan and Bill. Oo.

 

[shawn huizenga]

Ahh, now the rest of the story, makes sense now. I completely rescind my comment about possible poor business practice, and regret this thread exists as it has probably stirred some negativity before Stefan's post.

 

[Timbeaux38]

I have seen more transmission threads go bad than I care to. I have seen practically every transmission builder get bashed for one reason or another, and they rarely deserve it. How many times have we seen someone get upset at DTT, SC, ATS, etc. over a failure that could be blamed on an installer?


Let this thread be a warning... ... MAKE SURE YOUR INSTALLER KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING..... A 6k transmission can be killed rather quickly with an uninformed install.

 

[zstroken]

The original transmission failed because of what you did with the shifter

I am curious what did he do with the shifter that destroyed the transmission? Did he hack the throttle Valve lever or??

 

[Stefan Kondolay]

Anytime you buy a shifter it has to come with its own lever that goes on the transmission. All aftermarket shifters when they are positive shifters ie ) ratchet shifters are designed with the shifter arm that is supposed to go to the transmissison to be a matched set. If they are not the transmisson valve body will not flow the oil properly. That was only one of the problems this truck came in with. For that reason alone we could have denied him any warranty or any assistance at all . The second problem is that when they took the shifter apart and took the handle off the shifter , they lost pieces off the shifter. We did not discover this until the transmission was in and the shifter arm Joel told us did not exist he somehow found and sent for us to install. We were not upset mistakes were made we all make mistakes. Joel and his buddy were not mechanical enough for this type of job as evidenced by the fiasco but it was more than ignorance in the end. Dishonesty and deliberate deception is a whole other can of worms. There is nothing constructive we can add so we will refrain from commenting further.

 

[Jim Fulmer]

It's odd seeing post like this and it makes me thankful.



I've had my DTT since the spring of 02' and I have not received any customer service from DTT (home base) or my installer inarush76, why! It's easy there has been no need!



Back in the fall of 03' I did have a failure... . stock input shaft/hub. My builder/installer had warned me on the shafts weakness due to the fact of me going from 250 hp to 675hp, I elected to do go back into it until it needed it. So with the failure I updated to a billet input shaft/hub an a 91 converter then a freshing up. Since then my power has gone from the 675 to a best of 870 and I still have not had an issue other than Dodge electrical issues (TPS ect) Hats off to both of you and the products you put out.



And no Bill you cannot have my converter to look at till it causes problems



Jim

 

[JCutter]

I am to curious whats the deal with the shifter lever.



I have never had any problem with dtt. When ever i call, bill or stephen always called back (if not in shop). I called one day and Shanti said that she would have bill call me because he was at the track and sure enough 5 min. later he called back from the track.



They have alway been very helpful even though they might have a difference of opinion now. Ive had my share of bumps along the way. I bought a used dtt trans which probably had a few miles on it. Well shortly after i had it installed i burnt up a few of the clutch packs. I called, we talked, and i ordered a rebuild kit and input shaft (stock int. and output still).



Second go round obviously was the output shaft. I already had one ordered so it wasnt to bad.



Third go round i borke the intermediat shaft and welded the front clutches together. I called, we talked and ordered an intermediat shaft and master rebuild kit again. Well while it was in the shop i told the owner i would rebuild it. (small town and i know the shop pretty well) I tore the overdrive unit off and got the rest of the shaft out, started to put it together and decided to call them again for the clutch spacing #'s and other stuff they use since now im looking to hold 6-700 hp when playing around. Poor Shanti and Bill just didnt know what to think of me, i think, after i told them ive never cracked open a transmission before and was going to rebuild it. Bill talked me into going to Jack (one of their builders) so i took his advise and hauled my transmission 4 hours.



See im like quite a few guys on here. I like to work on all my toys and have a pretty good mechanical understanding, just have never had the chance to open a transmission. I also dont like spending extra money on shipping and traveling and paying a shop to drop a transmission a couple of times when i know, or think i can do it. To me i live to far away from about everything so i like to do stuff myself. To me thats all part of learning and i want to know as much as i can about everything i do.



Bill and Jack have spent their personal time on me and i do value that. Well worth the money spent to watch and learn. Hopefully i can remember something for next time. :-laf

 

[JCutter]

Thats sad. As long as it took me to write that post i missed 2 posts :-laf

 

[Graphic man]

i have always had great customer service from DTT along with a great products.



Scott

 

[DBraunig]

I have always had great service and products from DTT as well. 1 1/2 years on mine now, 20000 miles and over 100 passes at the strip so far... ... still shifts like when it was first built. Bill and Stefan have always been great for me to deal with.



Dave

 

[proflow]

Are you kidding me ? This is just ridiculous. Anyone who has had the pleasure of doing business with the folks @ DTT know this is crap. Ive had many successful dealings with these folks & always a positive outcome. They ALL @ DTT have personally bent over backwards for me , Anytime I've needed help. Trust me, im hard on my truck & never hid the fact. I think its no secret in business that there will always be the one who tries to blame the other for tragedy, just sad to see it against such nice people. As for Mr Joel Hardin , sounds like hes his own worst enemy. Also sounds like his truck is a butchered up piece of crap. Sad to see that happen to a perfectly good Dodge too. Please go buy a different rig, you don’t deserve a CTD. That’s all---Proflow

 

[DavidGardner]

Ovr 100,000 miles on mine and absolutly no problems. Bill and his crew are above reproach. Would do bussdiness with him again in a heart beat.



Dave Gardner Olympia Wa.