Thanks for the question. As for repair costs, any vehicle repair will always cost more through a shop than a shadetree mechanic in a backyard. Regular shops have overhead and wages to pay.
You pay more for the service, but you also receive many benefits, OEM or better quality parts every time, a long term warranty, and recourse in the event of a substandard repair. One other thing you get is the experience of a shop's staff who have worked on transmissions for many, many years. The knowlege of our staff is second to none.
Although there are many good, dedicated and honest shadetree mechanics out there, all too often you hear the stories where they leave town, don't honor any warranty, don't offer warranty or out of town warranty, and other bad situations which can and will leave people up the creek without a paddle.
Many, many times we have had to perform a repair that was supposedly recently completed by a backyarder for a very high price.
Please feel free to call me anytime at 972-221-5678 between 8am and 6pm Mon-Fri, or 8am-1pm on Saturday to discuss your needs.
Ernie
12-18 months? Really? Like any other service, the quality the work you receive is 100% dependant upon the people who do the work, and the quality of the components installed. We have many customers who had their transmissions overhauled at our shop over 10 years ago, and they come back for work on other vehicles because the transmission we built for them way back then is still going strong. The key to a transmission overhaul is the same as the key to ANY other repair, do it right the first time and don't take shortcuts on parts, and you'll have a transmission that will last for many years and many 10s of thousands of miles. Patch jobs never pay off in the end, and usually end in regret.