the Cost of Transmission Repair and Replacement

Transmission problem and diagnosis followed by a faulty transmission replacement and finally a proper transmission replacement.

Our car has a manual transmission and while driving down the road, it made a loud bang and popped out of gear. My wife was driving and she pulled over so I could check under the hood. Everything looked normal. I got in the driver seat and put the car in gear and took off but it wouldn't stay in gear. I held the transmission in gear while we drove to our regular mechanic. After taking a look, our mechanic recommended sending it to a transmission shop. The transmission shop said that the transmission shift fork inside had broken and that it would be cost-beneficial to replace it with a used unit. They quoted us $900 for a used transmission and $300 for labor.

A week later they called to tell us that they had received the transmission, tried to put it in, but it was the wrong one. They went on to explain that they knew it was wrong when it arrived but that they thought it would work fine and took the chance that they could get it done without the extra time of having another transmission sent. It took another week, then, to get the correct transmission and have it properly installed. During that second week, my daughter came home from college for spring break. I had to rent a car to drive to the airport to pick her up and again to return her at a cost of about $200 for rental.

In the end, they did a fine job. The car runs just fine and I believe the $1200 that I was quoted along with the original week to finish the job was reasonable. But the extra week due to trying to make the wrong transmission work and the rental fee were very disappointing.

Advise your shop that you don't want corners cut like that. Advise that you only want factory or original parts intended for your make, model, and year. This is presuming that those parts are available, of course.

Find a mechanic that you can trust, someone you can build a relationship with. Think of him or her ans you would a doctor. They sometimes recommend specialists too.