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How big a job is it to replace individual gears in a gearbox? Sounds very labour intensive to me, but maybe not?
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Oh dear :(.
Don't think it is a that big deal, when my MK4 Fiesta clutch went my machanic said it is a big job as gearbox has to come out so it will be £80 labour.
Probably depends on the car.
I hope this is not about the Suzuki.
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I completly miss read your post :). And yes it seems to be a very time consuming job. Not that many gearbox specialists exist as it for a car it is mostly cheaper just to buy used a unit.
I imagine stripping gearboxes is a lot more common for buses and trucks where you can't just get a replacement box for £100 of ebay.
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As Rattle says, a guaranteed secondhand box from a reputable breaker is the most cost effective route.
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Not paying myself so not worried about the actual economics of it.
Just wondered if it was a small or big job to change the components.
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I've had 2 gearbox rebuilds under warranty,
Astra in 1996, 12,000 miles and they took 3 days - 8 hours work and 2 days waiting on parts. Xedos @ 3000 miles again 1/2 & reverse, was again 3 days but bigger job, engine out which is a very tight fit.
Last edited by: Falkirk Bairn on Sat 29 Jan 11 at 19:51
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The reason I ask is because my new car has had 4th and 5th replaced as part of the sale.
Actually what it was, I said that the gearbox whine in 5th was excessive and I had it made condition of sale that it was rectified. He said thats fine, he would let me know if they couldnt repair it within their margins, but apparently they could as it will be out the workshop Monday.
He said they had replaced 4th aswell as 5th, I presume as a precautionary measure while they had it all in pieces as 4th wasnt noisey at all that I could tell.
Im presuming their margin was atleast £1500, so I was curious whether they could do the gearbox work, service it, MOT it ( needed a wheel bearing ) and get it valeted plus other small costs for that figure and make a profit.
I imagine they can or they wouldnt be doing the sale, but it did make me wonder, although Im sure the internal labour rate isnt the £72 an hour they charge the public.
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How many miles has this car done Stu ?
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36k. It wasnt deafening or anything, just irritating really. It reminded me of a Mini or MK1 Micra, but I asked him if they are known for whine which some cars are an he said no, so will sort it.
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Oh right, it will interesting to see what difference it has made then.
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...so I was curious whether they could do the gearbox work...
Depends how many banana skins it took to pack it out.
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>> Depends how many banana skins it took to pack it out.
Or how many bags of sawdust in the oil... ;-)
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When I had a box get noisy with a grinding noise there was no question of opening up the box, it was replaced as a unit. Not my choice though as it was under warranty (Mitsubishi).
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You've got to be sure they are actually going to strip and rebuild the 'box.
If the noise isn't too bad - as you indicated - won't they be overwhelmingly tempted to replace the gearbox oil with a thicker oil + maybe an additive.
I'd be asking to see the old parts.
J
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>>
>> I'd be asking to see the old parts.
>>
>> J
>>
and why there's gearbox whine at such low mileage
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I find it a bit strange to have wear in 5th gear at such a low mileage on what is primarily a town car and that has probably spent more time in 2nd than 5th
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Ill be sure to ask, but really, if problem solved, problem solved. There werent any problems with gear selection or anything like that.
I will see if I can speak to whoever did the work.
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I doubt if they have the skills, experience or the spare parts to rebuild the box, nor would their margin cover the workshop time.
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Well how much workshop time does it take to change two gears then Zero?
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exact time? no idea, but the box has to come out, be stripped down, rebuilt, put back in, 8 hours i would reckon. If they know what they are doing.
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Well, its a main dealer, who have the franchise for the same make of car, the workshop manager certainly knows his cars.
8 hours at say an internal rate of £50 an hour which is likely, is only £600 if you round it up to 10 hours, plus the parts, not sure what they would be but I shouldnt think they were big bucks.
With a £1500 margin, I can easily see they could service it and MOT it within a grand and still make some pennies.
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>> Well, its a main dealer, who have the franchise for the same make of car,
>> the workshop manager certainly knows his cars.
It might well be, but the fact of the matter is that modern gearboxes are simply not designed to be repaired. Individual items will not be stocked, nor the technical information (the rtfm)
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Well if they couldnt do it, Im sure they wouldnt have done. When I worked at a main dealer they took boxes apart although only two of the 7 guys did that sort of work.
If they fix the whine, its fixed. They could have fed me a line about it being normal, id not have known or just said it needed new oil.
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>> I doubt if they have the skills, experience or the spare parts to rebuild the
>> box,
And unless you are sure - 100% sure - it's been fixed properly, and warranted.
walk
J
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The work is individually warranted yes. As main dealers go, their service department seems to have plenty of experienced mechanics and an excellent workshop manager who solved a whine on the back axle of my Carry van. Im not worried about their abilities, they are far from a backstreet garage.
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So long as it still changes gear as it did before and is now quiet in 5th there will probably be nothing to worry about.
However if you have any doubt about it then i would advise walking away - there are plenty more cars out there.
Your 1st instinct is usually the right one IMHO !
Andy
Last edited by: AndyP on Sat 29 Jan 11 at 21:06
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My instincts tell me its fine. The box felt fine apart from the whine, so if it feels good and now sounds good, Im not concerned. Better to have had the work done than not.
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>> My instincts tell me its fine.
>>
You still trust your instincts after where they have got you in the last few years with all the cars you have wasted money on?
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>> The work is individually warranted yes. As main dealers go, their service department seems to
>> have plenty of experienced mechanics and an excellent workshop manager who solved a whine on
>> the back axle of my Carry van. Im not worried about their abilities, they are
>> far from a backstreet garage.
>>
I assumed - wrongly - that you purchased from an independent used car sales site.
If it's a franchised Suzuki dealer I wouldn't be concerned as they will have someone there with the expertise, the correct special tools, and access to the manufacturers technical support etc. if required.
Good luck with the car
J
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My experience is that its not the gears themselves but bearings or synchros.
Having said that 3rd gear on the 16V Astra was week under rally conditions and could strip its teeth a bit too easily.
Will tackle most jobs but a couple of times I've plucked up the courage to have a go and got as far as taking the lid off and then whimped out.
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I can remember 'handing on' the tools for a proper mechanic who was rebuilding a Cortina gearbox.
It was no bigger than a shoebox, but there were still far too many shafts and cogs for me to understand.
Doing a 'box on a presumably transverse engined Suzuki is not a job I'd like to take on.
The dealer ought to have someone capable of tackling it, but the cost would concern me.
Most main dealer sales departments are not willing to spend £60 in the workshop on a used car, let alone £600.
Their alternative would be to steer Stu into something else and flog this car to someone who wears a hearing aid.
Shouldn't be too hard given the average age of Wagon R buyers.
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Well, looking at trade in values on a car like mine and also bearing in mind the previous owner was a little old lady, seems likely she got hammered on the trade-in value, so while it would prob have made £1800-1900, I suspect it may have been a way short of that, so given that the price I paid was £3295, theres some coin to be had still.
He was running through other used cars he had coming in. One was a 53 plate Ignis Sport with 22k, trade in on that is about £1500, which they had paid £1200 - forecourt price was to be £3995. I suspect thats how they can appear generous.
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No way have they rebuilt the box on a £3k car for a slight whine. Changed the oil and stuck some molyslip in maybe. How did you hear it whining over the (presumably noisy) wheel bearing? Given your history wih cars that turn out to bark, I'd run in the other direction. Fast!
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Not an exact comparison but last year I had my Mondeo auto box repaired/rebuilt.
Total cost was about £800. This included one part @ £320 (the guy gave me the old part ) and of course expensive ATF .
I have to trust a company of 30+ years ( recommended by HJ) and am well pleased with the result.
I would expect a manual box to cost a lot lot less than my auto cost.
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So assuming they paid less than book for this Wagon R, say £1600 I would expect, that would be about £1700 to play with. I reckon they may see £7-800 minimum from the deal. Depends largely on the internal labour rate really.
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No such thing as no way. Its all about margins and recon costs with used cars, so if the margin is big, you can afford to fix things.
Wheel bearing wasnt making any noise that I could hear, must have been marginal for the MOT.
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Their workshop or a gearbox specialist?
Its good news that it will be ready so soon and that they had the parts in stock or got them delivered so fast and will fit them even faster.....
Unless it was just (as suggested above) thicker oil/gearbox gloop..
Go on get those replaced parts and prove us all wrong
As always
Mark
Last edited by: Mark on Sat 29 Jan 11 at 22:28
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Im not sure a week to turn around a car is really that soon. It was still in the workshop this morning, I saw it in there in pieces.
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>> Im not sure a week to turn around a car is really that soon. It
>> was still in the workshop this morning, I saw it in there in pieces.
>>
Time for a new thread "zero's Primera vs Stu's maindealer Suzuki: running and repair costs"?
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Stu, with your record of buying, can't you walk away?
If I look at a second-hand motor and its got any sort of problems, then I let it be someone else's problem.
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>> Stu, with your record of buying, can't you walk away?
>>
>> If I look at a second-hand motor and its got any sort of problems, then
>> I let it be someone else's problem.
>>
:-) When the sellers see Stu, they think
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVvcD4Czx4Y
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I really wasn't meaning to be rude when in another thread I said I looked after a small Suzuki a few years back and lots of the bits were made of cheese... but compared to others cars that's what it felt like.
The gearbox issue isn't unusual and they have a poor reputation if you search the web.
Here are some screws made of cheese that break and can cause the whine...
i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff191/lxxBishopxxl/Suzuki%20Wagon%20R%201999/GB_LowerRear.png
And here is a description of how to check for such a problem...
***Open the bonnet looking at the right hand end of the gearbox (nearside) there is a cover bolted to the gearbox. If you remove the cover you will see 5th gear with its selector. between the gear cogs and the main casting there is a plate (4mm thick) this plate should be held in place by countersunk screws. The plate should be completely flush with the alloy gearbox casting, there should be no gap. If there is a gap then one or more of the screws has either sheared or stretched and will soon break. The broken screw head will then go into the box and may cause all kinds of damage. In addition the plate comes loose which allows the input shaft bearing to slide out of place and the gears do not mesh correctly, the gearbox will whine and whirr. If the screws have sheared the box will need to be removed so you can extract the broken screw threads***
The only upside is that if the whine was caused by sheared/stretched screws and they haven't done any more damage as they fell to the bottom of the transmission... and they can get the rest of the screw out of the casing OK.... then there will just be the screws to replace and it should be quiet.
Until they fall out next time of course.
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Thanks, ive heard about this one and Im quite sure the dealer will know of it by now, so I expect it was the first thing they went to, may explain changing 4th gear aswell.
I dont mind so long as the work is done.
What Wagon R does this happen on though? HJ seems to suggest issues with the autos, no mention of manuals.
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I searched and searched and couldnt find anything on the MK2 Wagon R/Agila gearboxes. Googled it, checked owner reviews, CBC, couldnt find any real mention of gearboxes.
I know that the MK1 ( my garden ornament ) do have well known issues with their boxes ( the one thing thats fine on my car, must love the irony ).
The owners reviews on Parkers for the MK1 must have a 50% hit rate for replacement gearboxes, but I read every review for the Wagon MK2 and the Agila and not one mentioned gearbox at all. Few minor electrical bits mentioned but no gearbox stuff. Seems the Vauxhall 1.2 engine isnt liked much either.
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Stu listen to people when they say walk away :). I didn't listen to people who said I drink too much, I fell alseep on the night bus and had to walk further than the bus journey home :).
People on here know what they are talking about :)
Personaly I would not not have the heart to buy a used car again. It is why I ended up with a new car, I was sick of getting stiched up all the time.
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Ian not rattle :) And goodnight or good morning :)
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Night night Ian:)
Pat
Last edited by: pda on Sun 30 Jan 11 at 04:29
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Rattle, I mean Ian,
Get up you lazy beggar and do some work.
Just because it's Sunday, it doesn't mean you can't earn a pound note.
Last edited by: Iffy on Sun 30 Jan 11 at 07:15
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The info I linked to was an indication of what can go wrong with the gearboxes.... I have no idea of specific dates/models.
Even if yours is newer than those that routinely suffer this issue I would be concerned that this failure happens at such a low mileage... it shows weakness in the transmission.
As others have hinted above you have to wonder if the repair by the dealer will be made to a standard to just get it past the warranty they're offering you... or to a normal expected lifetime of the car (perhaps another 100K)??
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Until I find out why it was they had to change the gears, I cant really say what the reason is. It was worked on because I said the whine was unacceptable, but I dont know that they would have done anything had it not been condition of sale.
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Is it a GM or Suzuki box? My old Corsa used to whine like mad in 3rd and even in 4th it as a bit noisy. Even my Panda as a very slight whine in 3rd though seems to very common in small cars.
We have no idea how loud the whine was so we can't see if it is a was a problem or you are being paranoid and it wouldn't have been an issue which would have caused gearbox failure. It is being sorted out now though;
How much warranty do you have on the car?
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I spoke to the dealer today. He said that they didnt need to remove the box to replace the gears. Not sure if I beleiev that, but I dont know what access is like and he said I can have a chat with the guy who did the work so will see what he says.
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The Astra did that. A real doddle.
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Seriously? How do you get access?
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>> The Astra did that. A real doddle.
You're not mistaking changing the clutch are you?
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In the image link I posted above Stu I think it shows a 5th gear cluster outside the main gearbox casing under its own cover so 5th can be swapped with the box in the car.
i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff191/lxxBishopxxl/Suzuki%20Wagon%20R%201999/GB_LowerRear.png
The example shown may or may not be the same model as yours but it gives an idea.
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Interesting picture Fenlander. I never realised 5th gears could be like that. Mine (Volvo) is entirely inside the main box.
So the 5th gear illustrated is really just like an old bolt-on overdrive?
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Right, got the car now. They only replaced 5th gear, salesman wasnt listening to the workshop.
I spoke to the workshop manager who explained what they did and why.
5th gear had some worn teeth which he said he had never seen before and he reckoned it must be a manufacturing fault with the gear because the others were fine.
He said the reason you could change it in situ was that you can drop the gearbox an inch or so which allows the end plate to be removed and you can get enough access to 5th gear to change it.
Its all fixed too, 5th gear is now quieter than 4th.
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>> is now quieter than 4th.
When's it going to fall off? :-P
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i never realised this was a thread where the car was faulty before even collected
i wish i could get away with it ,hoping the new owner was going to be stone death and anyway our normal test drive doesnt include getting the thing into 5th,sir
i would have rejected it with a dammed big raspberry
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Replacing gears - RattleandSmoke
