Not the TOB. My transmission went out!

[Eli]

Originally posted by: Uhtrinity

Originally posted by: Eli
Damn, how cold is it for your engine to never warm up?

We're going to have some pretty cold temperatures for around here (lower 20s)..

I need to change my oil. Running Pennzoil Platinum 5W-20, but it's got ~13,000 miles on it.

0 - 30F for the most part, plus my commute is so short, 2 miles, park for 3 hrs, 3 miles, park for 3 more hours, 3 miles, then home. The engine doesn't fully warm up. Been hell on my winter mileage. I will be lucky to get 45 - 50 mpg this tank.

I'm still getting about 65 mpg if I take a trip over 10 miles long.

That's terrible.. that kind of driving is hell on an engine.

I found a local place that will do it for $525. Won't be done until tomorrow.

 

[SearchMaster]

My Eclipse was doing that for a while, I can't for the life of me remember what I did to fix it. I thought it was the throwout bearing and acted exactly as you describe but IIRC there was just something loose that I tightened up and all was good.

 

[Uhtrinity]

Originally posted by: Eli

Originally posted by: Uhtrinity

Originally posted by: Eli
Damn, how cold is it for your engine to never warm up?

We're going to have some pretty cold temperatures for around here (lower 20s)..

I need to change my oil. Running Pennzoil Platinum 5W-20, but it's got ~13,000 miles on it.

0 - 30F for the most part, plus my commute is so short, 2 miles, park for 3 hrs, 3 miles, park for 3 more hours, 3 miles, then home. The engine doesn't fully warm up. Been hell on my winter mileage. I will be lucky to get 45 - 50 mpg this tank.

I'm still getting about 65 mpg if I take a trip over 10 miles long.

That's terrible.. that kind of driving is hell on an engine.

I found a local place that will do it for $525. Won't be done until tomorrow.

I do let it warm for about 10 minutes first thing in the morning, then about 2 - 3 minutes each time later in the day.

Glad to hear it will be fixed soon. Btw, you haven't posted your mileage lately.

 

[Eli]

Ugh.

I don't think its the throw out bearing.

I think its the input shaft bearing in the transmission.

The noise is only there when the clutch is fully engaged...

What the fuck? After only 100,000 miles?

:|

This fucking sucks. WHAT THE FUCK?

 

[exdeath]

You're absolutely certain it's coming from the rear of the engine?

I thought my TOB was going out (especially since squealing TOB is a common problem on my car) and it seemed like moving the clutch would change the sound, but it ended up being an idler pulley bearing. It only made the sound early in the morning as it got cold out and sounded like a horrible metal on metal whining sound.

I'm guessing that pushing the clutch in and out, the additional loading on the engine of spinning the transmission, even in neutral, was enough to cause the sound to change. I thought it was the TOB for the longest time until I got up earlier than usual one morning and got under the hood with a pry bar to my ear and listened around for it.

Tough one to track down since I only had a minute or two of window to look for it first thing in the cold morning before it went away.

 

[Eli]

I won't know exactly what it is until the shop pulls the transmission and turns the input shaft by hand.

 

[Eli]

So I got the call from the shop today. They dropped the transmission. The noise is coming from the main bearing, the transmission is shot.

Total cost for used transmission with 15-30k on it with warranty, new clutch and labor is $1310. I don't have that much money, I don't know what I'm going to do.

This car isn't saving me any money at all.......

 

[Zenmervolt]

You have some of the worst luck with vehicles that I've ever seen, that absolutely sucks Eli.

ZV

 

[SearchMaster]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
You have some of the worst luck with vehicles that I've ever seen, that absolutely sucks Eli.

ZV

I was going to post the same thing, ZV. Eli seems like such a good guy but the car gods do not smile upon him.

 

[Uhtrinity]

Originally posted by: Eli
I'm pretty sure thats what it is. Any sure fire way to tell, other than the grinding in neutral and extreme crunching and grinding when accelerating? lol.

This sucks. The clutch itself seems to have plenty of life left. I'm just about to break 100k miles.

The dealership quoted me at 900$, minus 50 if the flywheel doesn't need machined.

:shocked:

For a freakin clutch job?!

I was thinking maybe 600$ tops. Yes, this really sucks. I don't know what to do. It's gotten really bad within the last few hundred miles, I'm glad I made it home last night.

:|

I'm hesitant to use a non dealership shop, but I'm sure they would give me a better price...

Update: So I got the call from the shop today. They dropped the transmission. The noise is coming from the main bearing, the transmission is shot.

Total cost for used transmission with 15-30k on it with warranty, new clutch and labor is $1310. I don't have that much money, I don't know what I'm going to do.

This car isn't saving me any money at all.......

Damn, that is bad luck as the transmission in the Insight should last a lot longer.

Have you tried Car-part.com for prices. I see a lot of used transmissions under $500. One has 25k miles in Seattle for that price, and they go below $200.

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: SearchMaster

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
You have some of the worst luck with vehicles that I've ever seen, that absolutely sucks Eli.

ZV

I was going to post the same thing, ZV. Eli seems like such a good guy but the car gods do not smile upon him.

:laugh:



I know. WTF?

I'm going to start up my own shop, damnit. At least then I won't have to pay out the ass for labor when my shit breaks.

 

[Uhtrinity]

dp

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: Uhtrinity

Originally posted by: Eli
I'm pretty sure thats what it is. Any sure fire way to tell, other than the grinding in neutral and extreme crunching and grinding when accelerating? lol.

This sucks. The clutch itself seems to have plenty of life left. I'm just about to break 100k miles.

The dealership quoted me at 900$, minus 50 if the flywheel doesn't need machined.

:shocked:

For a freakin clutch job?!

I was thinking maybe 600$ tops. Yes, this really sucks. I don't know what to do. It's gotten really bad within the last few hundred miles, I'm glad I made it home last night.

:|

I'm hesitant to use a non dealership shop, but I'm sure they would give me a better price...

Update: So I got the call from the shop today. They dropped the transmission. The noise is coming from the main bearing, the transmission is shot.

Total cost for used transmission with 15-30k on it with warranty, new clutch and labor is $1310. I don't have that much money, I don't know what I'm going to do.

This car isn't saving me any money at all.......

Damn, that is bad luck as the transmission in the Insight should last a lot longer.

Have you tried Car-part.com for prices. I see a lot of used transmissions under $500. One has 25k miles in Seattle for that price, and they go below $200.

I give up. I just want it to be fixed and overwith. I'm not going to nitpick to save myself a couple hundred bucks, plus take more time.

The transmission he sourced for me only has 15,000 miles on it apparently, so that's good.

The warranty is only 1 year or 12,000 miles, though.

12k is about 2 months for me. So that's fairly worthless.

 

[thomsbrain]

Jesus christ, man. That is some seriously bad luck. What could cause something like this to happen so early (bad previous driver? harsh conditions?). That is a ton of money to drop on a car at one time, but if you can squeeze it out of yourself, you should still get a lot of life out of the car. *crosses fingers*. I once dropped about $1200 on my old Accord at about 180K miles for a full timing belt service and major scheduled service at the same time, and that really hurt, but I drove it for another 45,000 miles without any issues and sold it for $2000, so it paid off IMO. You can probably get another 100K out of this one. Really sorry to hear about a fellow road-warrior hitting this kind of trouble.

 

[Zenmervolt]

Originally posted by: Eli

Originally posted by: SearchMaster

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
You have some of the worst luck with vehicles that I've ever seen, that absolutely sucks Eli.

ZV

I was going to post the same thing, ZV. Eli seems like such a good guy but the car gods do not smile upon him.

:laugh:



I know. WTF?

I'm going to start up my own shop, damnit. At least then I won't have to pay out the ass for labor when my shit breaks.

I dunno about that. You're like the automotive equivalent of Job, so if you get your own shop I'd be worried about having the car fall off the lift or something.

ZV

 

[Eli]

It's pretty insane, really.

There was no way for me to tell that the transmission was failing when I bought it. The noise only really came on within the last few hundred miles.

After only 100,000 miles, that's just wrong. Even if the gear oil had never been changed, which it probably hadn't. :roll:

I had been meaning to change it and put some AMSOil in there. That could have possibly alerted me to the problem, assuming there were metal shavings in the oil and I noticed them.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go melt some pistons down... perhaps it will appease the automobile Gods....

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt

Originally posted by: Eli

Originally posted by: SearchMaster

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
You have some of the worst luck with vehicles that I've ever seen, that absolutely sucks Eli.

ZV

I was going to post the same thing, ZV. Eli seems like such a good guy but the car gods do not smile upon him.

:laugh:



I know. WTF?

I'm going to start up my own shop, damnit. At least then I won't have to pay out the ass for labor when my shit breaks.

I dunno about that. You're like the automotive equivalent of Job, so if you get your own shop I'd be worried about having the car fall off the lift or something.

ZV

:laugh:

Ouch.



It's not my fault, though! I've only had the damn car for two months. If there is such thing as bad luck, this is it. I don't think theres anything I could have done to cause it to fail. And like I said, I don't think there was any practical way to know it was failing or going to fail when I bought the car.

 

[exdeath]

Can't just rebuild the transmission and replace the bearings?

 

[Eli]

Originally posted by: exdeath
Can't just rebuild the transmission and replace the bearings?

It would be more expensive overall, since it would take more time.

Throwing the used one in there is the cheapest route.

If I had the time and place to do it myself, that would be the way to go.

 

[zoiks]

Thats too bad man. Hope this sorts out for you.

 

[Tiamat]

Oh man, what terrible luck. I hope it works out...

 

[Fenixgoon]

Originally posted by: Tiamat
Oh man, what terrible luck. I hope it works out...

 

[Gillbot]

Start buying $50 junker beaters and walk away from them when they break down. Less repair costs that way and might be cheaper overall.

 

[thomsbrain]

Originally posted by: Gillbot
Start buying $50 junker beaters and walk away from them when they break down. Less repair costs that way and might be cheaper overall.

That's smart advice for people who don't need to depend on their car... *crickets chirp*

IIRC, Eli is a courier. His car is his livelihood, and downtime is bad news for him. He can't just bum a ride to work for a couple days like most people. I'm in a similar boat, with a journeyman position that means I drive all day in my personal car. Even scheduling regular services is a serious pain in the ass and takes a lot of planning. "The car MUST run today" is my 11th commandment.

 

[fbrdphreak]

I'm sorry to hear that Eli. I hope your next vehicle treats you better