It pays to look.

[Pin_Head]

I really don't enjoy working on my own cars, so I tend to pay other people to do the easy stuff. My son called me the other day on the way home from high school in his '97 Infiniti I30t, saying that the transmission went out and that it wouldn't move in any gear and it was making a horrible grinding noise. After towing him the 1/2 mile to home, I verified that it did indeed make a horrible grinding noise in all gears and I started looking into options for fixing it, which ranged from $1000 for a new transmission to $3000 for a complete rebuild with warranty. Neither option seemed good to me, since it is only worth maybe $4000.

Since the MIL light wasn't on, I decided to take a peek. What I found is the DS CV shaft had popped out of its spline in the transaxle. I popped back in and drove it around just fine with no noise. It didn't click in so I will take it out later and check the snap ring.

How lucky is that? Anyone seen anything like that happen with a FWD car?

My horoscope for the day said "stay calm in the face of adversity and you will be rewarded".

 

[D'Animal]

I wonder how many shops would have done that instead of charging you for a new tranny.

 

[highlandcruzer]

I wonder how many shops would have done that instead of charging you for a new tranny.

Very few. ........

Thats why I'm extremely loyal to an honest mechanic.

I had a trans go out one time......some AT something actuator was malfunctioning .

When the tow truck picked it up, they had no trouble driving the truck!

My mech. kept it for a week and a half , because he knew that I wasn't full of it. Test drove it again and again. hooked the diagnostic up several times......called me and said ,he couldn't find anything wrong , come pick it up......

He charge me $65.....storage and all !

It locked up on me two days later......I gladly paid him for a rebuilt tranny....he only charged me $400 bucks for labor !

 

[Pin_Head]

I wonder how many shops would have done that instead of charging you for a new tranny.

I wonder about that too. The shop I used to work at when I was in college would have done the full tranny job if the customer brought it in saying something was wrong with the tranny and signed off on repairing it. The customer was always "right".

I'm sure some shops would have popped the shaft back in and charged the customer for the complete tranny job and a complete front end job after we got it up on the rack because it "needed" that too.

 

[highlandcruzer]

A girl that works with my wife , asked for a ride to work the other day......her husband looked at it. "Clutch/tranny went out."

I rode down there myself.......Clutch master , out of dot 3.......

I gaurantee that they would charge her for , at least a clutch ,....for .50 cents worth of dot 3 .

I couldn't even find a leak . [old 80's rodeo, I doubt the hood had been raised before, other than oil changes]

 

[cruiser88]

I have never seen one pop out let alone to go look.....You are quite lucky

 

[CruisinFJ60]

i have had stupid crap like that happen to me before. nothing really comes ti mind right now but having worked in a shop enviroment for years and doing all my own wrenching you see weird stuff.