Ouch!

[noahgibbs]

It looks like it's gonna be between $1900 and $2200 for the transmission work on the truck, and that's just the pre-taking-apart estimate. It definitely seems like it'll take a transmission rebuild, though, so that's not the mechanic being unreasonable. It's just that it's the transmission, and that means it's expensive.

Do I just keep my truck as a beater 'til the transmission fails, and start looking for a cheap used replacement? Do I pay this, because it's otherwise been a pretty solid, reliable little truck (with 100,000+ miles, though)? I don't want to pay for a new car at this point if I can avoid it...

Damn, I dunno.

Comments

Tranny

[jd5p.livejournal.com]

Find out how much buying a rebuilt tranny or a replacement tranny would be and then get Kidder to help you put it in, or if you need I can lend a hand.
Are they gonna pull the tranny and replace it or repair it?

Re: Tranny

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

Dunno. I'll look into it, I guess. I know zero about installing a new transmission. Not sure how much time and effort I want to put into this (a mistake costs me $1000 by Xta's estimate, and I have no actual skill). And I doubt Brian'd be up for it -- he's injured and not very mobile, plus he has plenty of his own car projects sitting idle.

But yes, they'd be rebuilding the tranny.

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

Keeping in mind that this advice is coming from someone who is still driving her first car with 250K+ miles on it, who had the engine replaced at 174K... um, I say get it fixed. Would you, for $2200, be able to buy a truck in comparable condition to how your truck will be once fixed? No. So by fixing it you win.

jd5p's idea isn't a bad one... totally out of my ass, I'm guessing a junkyard tranny would run you about half that... more like $800-$1000... but it would probably need some work and you might not come out ahead in the end.

also, for purely selfish reasons I don't want to see you distracting the boy from getting his vette back on the road :)

[miss-mimsy.livejournal.com]

Speaking from experience I would either fix it or sell it. I wouldn't drive it, praying it won't break down. If you are going to drive it, I would suggest invest in a cell phone for when you break down in the middle of the night while it is raining.

If you put money into it, you are going to feel obligated to keep putting money into it. The problem with a used vehicle, the price of maintenance outweighs the value. You could probably get away with getting it fixed in some manner and keeping it around, since it isn't your primary vehicle. Fixing it will probably keep it going for quite a while, since it usually doesn't see heavy use.

A new/hardly used truck ain't cheap, but it means you don't get surprised by nasty repair bills and you have a warranty.

The question is if you want to pay for reliability or if you want to take your chances and try to save some cash.

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

The question is if you want to pay for reliability or if you want to take your chances and try to save some cash

Unfortunately, by the time I've got enough miles on the truck to justify paying for the reliability, it won't be new (and potentially not reliable either) any more :-)

Dunno. I'm leaning toward "fix" at the moment... Blue book value suggests that, though my previous experience suggests that CA dealer prices have almost nothing in common with blue book.

[ts4z.livejournal.com]

CarTalk claims it's always cheaper to repair. I suspect this is true, especially for a CA truck which won't have a lot of rust on it. They discuss it rather rationally in terms of reliability vs. cool; their guideline is ten years, and their optimal suggestion is to buy a 1 year old car and drive it until the doors fall off.

I mean, if you've got to buy a new transmission every 75K miles (I figure the rebuild can't last as long as the original), it's still cheaper than making payments--even if you take into account the occasional engine rebuild, paint job, whatever, even if you pay someone to do it. It's just that you might want an AAA membership, too.

I've seen moderate mileage trucks for $5K to $10K, so I actually suspect you could get something similar for not entirely too much money. CA dealers aren't completely out of whack from what I can tell, but there's definitely a negotiation. On the other hand you could go down to Wheels and Deals in Santa Clara and buy direct from someone. You ought to be able to get a truck for $2K, perhaps even a pretty decent one for $4K. Given that transmissions aren't something you get credit for on a used car, it's even possible you might find one that had been rebuilt.

Personally this is not the choice I would make, but what I want out of a car is clearly different than what you want. I've spent too much time talking to Brian and Jonah, I guess.

[angelbob.livejournal.com]

I've gone ahead and told 'em to start the rebuild. I hope it's done by next Friday, when I'd like to use it for a decent-length road trip, but we'll see what we'll see.

Yeah, I'm not so much interested in a pretty or impressive car. Dude, for the money you're looking at there I could get about three excellent Japanese sportbikes, or a couple good-quality BMW or Ducati bikes. With hard luggage, even :-)

[ts4z.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but I prefer vehicles with, y'know, walls.