Ford says new transmission? I need some independent advice.

Just wanted some independant feedback on this...

My 2000 explorer (94K miles) is starting to experience some clutch slippage. I notice it getting more and more worse as time passes. I took it in and the Ford dealer told me that I needed a new transmission.

I pressed the guy on a few questions because it seemed like they wanted $3200.00 (rebuilt tranny install, or 1700 + parts for rebuild) simply because the old one slips and they don't know why.

Eventually the guy told me that they ran all the diagnostics and that everything looked fine, so there must be an "internal failure", thus the tranny is "hurt bad". This seems suspicious to me, so I asked what specifically had failed internally, and he said he had no idea, they did not open it up and look.

Maybe the cost of opening the thing up far outweighs the cost of rebuilding/replacing, I don't know, that seems like bad design. Should I take it to an independant transmission shop and have them look?

Thanks, troy

Aside: Does anyone think that owning a Ford Explorer is more cost than it's worth? I think I've spent enough for 2 of these darn things and I keep it in good preventative care according to the documentation that came with it. Is 94000 miles too many for a Ford to handle?

Reply to
tfandango
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They can't figure out what's wrong so they want you to drop $3200 to make the problem go away by replacing EVERYTHING?

Absolutely! Or at least to another Ford dealer.

I had a 1991 that never gave me a bit of trouble EXCEPT that the manual transmission kept blowing-up. The first tranny went at 64,000 miles, and by 110,000 the second was showing signs of impending doom. Not certain if your 2000 model uses the same Mazda transmission as the 1991.

So in 2002 I replaced the vehicle with a used 2000 model that had an automatic transmission. No trouble with the 2000 EXCEPT the "valve body separator plate gasket" inside the transmission failed at 39,000 miles. Ford agreed to replace that under warranty (but charged me $75 for my trouble because the vehicle was "officially" out of warranty).

Greg

Reply to
Greg Berchin

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