by Todd Low
Automotive Technology
A car is brought in to your shop with no second gear. You test it and determine that it has first gear, reverse gear, and if you get it up to speed, you can even get 3rd gear. The car has 150,000 miles on it, and the customer still wants his transmission to work properly. You diagnose that the intermediate band in the transmission is broken and that band is the major problem. There is a lot of metal and clutch material in the bottom of the oil pan from other parts of the transmission. You know that the transmission is just about worn out.
To repair the problem, you must remove the transmission and almost completely disassemble it in order to replace the broken band.
Questions:
Should you tell the customer he needs to have the transmission completely rebuilt?
Do you just fix the problem and put it back together?
If you just fix the problem, what kind of warranty do you put on the transmission?
Do you offer to tow it to the nearest junkyard for $50.00?