Art's Blog

Transmission rebuild pricing and how a price is figured. I work very different then most shops because most shops want how they price units to be a mystery. They are in rare exceptions certain cars giving a price is very hard which I will explain later. But 95 percent of the automatics on the road a price can be given. Take a 2004 chevy tahoe that has had the same transmission from 1994 there were some changes but very minor.
I do that unit in my shop for 1700 dollars. This post was writen in 2012 prices may be different then what is listed in my example. We try hard to keep prices as low as possible the reason I am saying this is because this post was brought to my attention as being posted on sunday 12/14/2014 I am not sure how or why it says that I have not updated this blog in sometime yet the date says sunday. this is the End of the update. Yet many shops will try and get you to agree to dissemble the transmission with out giving a price. Now I do agree that seems the fairest way to price a unit. But here is the problem this way of pricing is called rdi remove dissemble to price it and the I means to install. To farther convince you they will use words like it may not be a big problem. So they give you that hope that it can be minor.
All sounds good but it is never minor even when it is minor it is never minor. A good example of this is on this Tahoe it is really common for the sun gear shell to strip which gives you no rev. That is a minor problem the transmission has to come out to repair but once you take the unit out and open it you need gaskets and filter sun gear shell your going to get a rebuild or so called rebuild.And more time then not you will pay more then a shop that gave a price to you up front because they have your car apart you are stuck I call it you are held hostage. Here is why this way of selling a repair is not needed. You the customer can call the car dealer and ask for the part dept and ask how much for a reman transmission you will get a list price.then you can ask any shop what is the labor to r&r my transmission a tahoe in this case is about 5-6 hours now you have your numbers that is the price to solve your transmission problem. Now knowing that number you can make a more clear decision. I know my 1700 dollar price beats the dealers price by about 1000 dollars. But many shops will be higher then the dealer or the same price. The point is you should never agree to leave you car and pay any fees until a firm price is given to you. To drive my point would you give anybody a signed blank check to work on anything you need we know the answer no way. Same as leaving your car with out knowing price your leaving a blank check in the hands of the shop they want to extract as much as possible from you.

Now in some cases giving a price up front can be really tuff but again every car maker out there you can call the dealer and get a price for a unit and the time to remove and replace can be found on line or calling a shop. So you can always come up with a price why some units are harder take newer type cars many time the unit has not been around long enough to know all the failures that can happen so in those cases you have to take a look to see what failed.
But all in all there are not that many like that. Any shop that is in business should be able to give you some idea of cost and be within a few hundred dollars.

1 get a price up front
2 never agree to have them take apart you car with out know cost with in a few hundred.
3 go on line ask question cal other shops to get ideas as to cost.
4 do not let fear guide you.
5 do no fall for it may be a minor problem line.