Gearbox & Transmission Repairs & Servicing with The Gearbox Centre Devon in Torquay

I learnt of this transmission repairer at a time of not knowing where to turn with my attempts to find someone who could repair the Ford Powershift 6DCT450 transmission on my 2012 Kuga. The local Ford dealer (Vosper) was distinctly non committal and did not even try to induce any customer confidence in their enthusiasm or ability to repair this. They quoted a price for a new transmission, and also started to send a string of emails persuading me to buy a new Ford Kuga. Another local automatic transmission repairer threw up his hands and said they had little success repairing this particular gearbox in the past, and would not offer to do this for me. It was in these circumstances that I spoke with Marc Chilton of Torquay Transmissions. Marc immediately inspired confidence in him, and gave a cast iron guarantee that the gearbox could be repaired, but told me that a complete ground up rebuild of the transmission would cost £2500 plus VAT, and that this would be the maximum cost I would be incurring. He assured me that Torquay transmissions have been repairing this particular gearbox repeatedly and with guaranteed success. At this point, I felt I could not get a better offer, and I sent the car on a flatbed truck, all the way to Torquay from Plymouth.

A little over a week later, the job was completed. It was expedited a little at my request.

The garage in Torquay is based on a small cul de sac, and is truly a very basic and 'low rent' outfit, and operating clearly on small margins.

They would not allow me to test my vehicle till I had paid the bill, and my brief and early conversation with the person taking payments was less than confidence inspiring. I had to pointedly ask to be shown the parts that had been changed in the gearbox, at which point the senior mechanic walked me around the garage demonstrating physically what had been done with the gearbox with other similar gearboxes lying around under repairs.

We drove the car for a couple of days when everything seemed alright, and we then drove the car all the way to Inverness in Scotland from the South Coast on a planned vacation. The gearbox froze once around the north coast of Wales where we had detoured out to. Though it put the worst frights on us, the problem seemed to rectify itself. There was some intermittent smell of oil, which was a little worrying. But we drove all the way to Scotland and back to the South Coast over a period to two weeks, and the car and transmission got more and more sure footed and problem free. Marc Chilton was available at the end of a phone a couple of times during this journey, and he was generally reassuring that the repairs would hold.

It is now 10 weeks after the repairs. The transmission is working well. I had the car independently checked out for any obvious oil leaks, and there was none. Marc Chilton has given us a year's guarantee for the repairs.

Considering our over all experience, I think Torquay Transmissions has done the repairs to a standard that is meeting the test of time. They offered to repair at a cost that was very competitive, and Marc was extremely reassuring of a good outcome, and he has been proved right over time. The garage at Torquay works to small margins, and they lack the sophistication of large garages, but at the end of the day, they have carried out a repair to a standard we are delighted with. They know they could improve their customer communications, but like all of us, they respond to customers as per the reality of their everyday life and dealings. Marc has been truly a star performer. The mechanics however, are the unsung heroes, working from a very basic garage environment, and ensuring a good outcome.

The real villains in all of this is Ford, who have been short changing many people with this flawed auto transmission box that has been recalled in America on account of class action law suits. And the local dealers show no interest in repairing the gear box! They frighten you with the sting of a new gearbox altogether at £7000