Transmission Destroyed By Python 871xp

Did the remote start even work? If they were on the wrong tach, the unit would not have even learned the tach signal, thus never work. Unless they put it on voltage sense after they couldnt get it to learn tach.

I mean tach is easy to find anyway on that van. A caveman could do it... a capped WHITE/ pink with a CTO sticker on it under the hood.

Well.. I've read through the entire post.. all 14 pages. Here's my thoughts.

Playing the D.A...

mabuffalo submits that Circuit City miswired the alarm system they installed and broke his transmission. Even if CC admits miswiring, it still needs to be proved that the miswiring caused the transmission failure. I think that's going to be the problem. Even though it's interesting that, according to mabuffalo, the failure occurred immediately after the remote start was installed, it has to be noted that he only had the vehicle for a short time. 

Looking at the pictures posted at mabuffalo's website, I noticed that the sun gear and planetary gears look damaged. As these gears are in constant mesh with one another, 'grinding the gears' isn't possible as compared to a manual transmission. While the transmission fluid does appear to be in good condition in the pictures, it should be noted that mabuffalo had recently purchased the vehicle and that the possibility exists that the fluid had been changed before the sale of said vehicle, possibly to conceal a pre-existing transmission problem.

It is alleged that the wiring for the alarm/remote start was connected improperly. It should be noted that plaintiff did arm/disarm and remote start vehicle in the parking lot of the defendant, and that proper and correct operation was observed. Problem was first noticed while dis-arming the anti-hijacking option of the unit while operating the vehicle.

... to drop out of legalese.. burden of proof lies with mabuffalo. He has to demonstrate that the miswiring of the unit was what caused the damage to the transmission. Without knowing how it was miswired, I can't really comment on that aspect of it, except to say that I would agree with mabuffalo's assessment that this would be an extremely rare failure mode.. if we apply Bishop Occam's theory to the information as stated (excluding any information not revealed; such as mileage of the van, statement of AAMCO as to cause and extent of damage, statement of indie shop detailing miswire and ramifications of same) then it doesn't seem likely.

Just my 0.02.. if I was presenting this, I'd have as an expert witness, at minimum, a tech with significant training, education and factory backing. The best I would expect out of this case would be to split costs between CC and mabuffalo.

Jim

EDIT: Michael, your circuitcity page on your website is in the wild.. it's available to the public. It shows up in searches, and Google.com cached it on July 22 - and they have it stored in their database. It's not private anymore, and available to anyone who wants to read it.

I'm gonna ask a couple questions

How many miles were on this van?

you bought this used ?

I have seen quite a few of them transmissions in them ford vans take a dump more then once.

I used to work right next to a transmission shop and seen plenty of them vans in there having transmissions repaired. not the 1st time I've seen a sun gear and planeteries come apart like that.