Pioneer Transmissions

Sil, Doug and The team at Pioneer transmissions in Brantford, are second to none. Great old-fashioned, honest, professional, reliable workmanship, and you’re constantly greeted with a smile.
They have serviced everything we own over the past years, including our 23 foot C class motorhome, several classic car transmission, repairs, our 2010 Jeep transmission repair, as well as a 2016 diesel pickup truck general service and repairs as well. Always the same great workmanship and personal professional service.
Al Procter

Very friendly and helpful.

Well, happy Father’s Day everyone.
It just came to mind a most recent experience I had with Pioneer Transmissions that was quite disappointing to say the least. As I’m out and about driving my truck celebrating this gorgeous sunny day, I thought wow, if Pioneer Transmissions was reputable, it wouldn’t have left me high and dry hence leaving me without my beautiful frame off 1953 Buick Skylark convertible this day. We are just into summer and we know how short the season is. A couple of weeks ago I pulled in to Pioneer transmission in order to check out the place and staff as they had been recommended by a local hot rodder friend and spoke with the fella at the desk by the name of Doug, a nice enough fella, and explain to him that I have this car that requires rear axle seals which had just started to leak and bearings, which I had as far as all the parts were concerned. I also confirmed with him that my car had a driveshaft in a tube design quite typical of that vintage. Doug responded that yes they were quite familiar with that and that Pioneer could accommodate me in about 2 weeks which I agreed to. 2 weeks later I called the day before and spoke with Doug to reconfirm the appointment who then tried to rebook me for another couple of weeks down the road as their “hoists were full”, but upon stating my displeasure then said bring it anyway. They’d get it done.
So I loaded my car in it’s enclosed trailer, drove there, unloaded it and waited until they got it inside and began loading it on the hoist and left.
An hour later at home I received a phone call from Doug saying that my car has a “lot of problems that need to be tended to” and that I should come pick up the car and remove it. Also that if I got there soon enough they would leave it on the hoist and point out these problems. Much to my surprise with this news and somewhat open minded, I responded by saying ok let’s slow this down a bit ( and not panic). I got there in about 40 minutes and was greeted by Syl the owner I presume, who proceeded to tell me that he and Mirco the Polish guy had gone over the car and now Syl was to show me a few absolutely tiny irrelevant matters to his job and rather regular type of Dynaflo leaks, gasket sweating matters here and there indicative of old cars. That said I know this because I keep this in a heated garage with a clean concrete floor and monitor those type of things daily. Anyway, it was clear that he didn’t want to do the job and “ tie up a hoist “ even though he said upon me questioning him that the job required about 2 hours a side. He also said that he didn’t want to get into this for fear of a bunch of things like his insurance was only good for $50,000 or so, that one of the parts was a tough one to deal with as in the way of a seal between the driveshaft tube and the differential, that he didn’t feel comfortable AND that he had many other Transmission jobs to do!!! Finally he was honest.
That said he was fine with me coming back later after the long weekend in September ( end of the summer) and then they’d tackle it.
What a total disappointment as this poor man of approximately 60 years of age couldn’t be straight in the first place! Oh, and then he said that he was about 60 or 63 years of age and because this car was older than him he wouldn’t know what to do with it. Absolutely unbelievable and pathetic.
There is no way I would do any type of business with this unreliable, fearful and weak man. So I collected my stuff, reloaded it on my trailer and went home to look for someone else that could handle this job in a timely and professional manner. I believe I have found such an operation. More later.
Thank you for wasting my time Pioneer Transmissions..