Junk or try to sell?

Ummmm....depending on a lot of stuff (where you are in Central MO, how the tires are, and what color the interior is) I might be interested in it for parts for my 2008 Titan.

PM me some pics?  

psteav said:

Ummmm....depending on a lot of stuff (where you are in Central MO, how the tires are, and what color the interior is) I might be interested in it for parts for my 2008 Titan.

 

PM me some pics?  

Will do after I get home from work this evening.

ThurdFerguson said:

 My mechanic quoted $4,500 for the transmission repair.  Not happening thus the replacement already purchased and brought home last night. 

Your mechanic wants to cover his butt and line his pockets.  I used to run a chain of 13 transmission repair shops.  I worked hard to keep my managers honest, but it never worked.  The answer is ALWAYS money.  I have watched my technicians find a crunched wire, low fluid, or read a well-known code and knew they should try a solenoid first, but they (and the managers) see dollar signs and always recommend a rebuild.  At that point, you transmission is out and in a box in pieces and they can charge whatever they want.

Scenario A: random shop wants money and they will screw you out of it.

Scenario B: a trusted shop that you've used for 10 years wants to keep your business, so they don't want to take multiple stabs at trying, so they recommend the full monty... and screw you.

Shops who take the risk of shooting too low end up losing business because "they tried three times and couldn't fix it," when in actuality they might have been trying to be nice and save you money.

What I would recommend is that you don't do a free estimate.  Pay for it.  If you came into my shop for my free estimate on your transmission, the entire purpose of that is to find everything wrong with your car from brakes to taillights.  I pay a technician to look at your car during that free estimate.  The only way I make money is if a certain percentage are converted to repairs.  If you came into my other shop that charges for estimates and gave me $100 (an hour of labor) to properly diagnose it and then decide not to do the repairs, I end up with two scenarios; 1) I correctly diagnose the issue, you decline the repair, and I make $76 after paying my tech $24 for their work.  2) I correctly diagnose the issue and you elect to do the repair.

Heck, one shop I worked with (for a whole month) used the gimmick where they would actually remove and disassemble your transmission for free to diagnose it.  Great for diagnosis, but you can't really decline the repair at that point.  You had to pay whatever the service writer said.  In that one month we filed 17 liens because people had abandoned their car.  Shady, bullE36 M3, and I left before the shop was shut down... mostly because the franchise owner was putting most of the profits up his nose.

The bottom line is that in many situations, free diagnosis leads to "holy E36 M3 your car will explode if you don't give me $4000."  Paid diagnosis leads to an investment in what is actually wrong.

I'm simply suggesting that completely writing it off because of one estimate that may or may not be accurate (especially with modern automatic transmissions) is a sure-fire recipe for my 62 Cadillac scenario.  I would  hate for you to write off thousands of dollars for a loose wire or bad $40 solenoid and 20 minutes labor.

It is quite possible that your transmission is toast, so if you decide to not fix (totally viable choice), I strongly suggest you sell it instead of using a scrap or junkyard route.