Cost of cheap rebuilds - how to save $50 and spend $1400 at the same time

Are there any quality aftermarket transmission parts, or is it best to stay with OEM? When I had the transmission rebuilt in my Dodge Spirit, the first two converters self-destructed. They used one from a different manufacturer for the third attempt. It has now been close to three years, and it continues to work fine.

-Kirk Matheson

There are a lot of quality aftermarket transmission parts but you have to know what to look for. The aftermarket seems to be aimed at 3 segments, racing, heavy duty(towing, service vehicles, etc.) and passenger car replacement. The first segment is super expensive, the second is expensive, and the third is cheap. There is definitely some blurring with racing and commercial with a number of vendors simply relabeling heavy duty commercial parts as race parts and charging more money for them.

I think a lot of the AAMCO and other such retail places go for the cheap as they are bidding against each other purely on price. The place I took mine to pretty much specializes in contracted commercial work with some racing, they don't do in and out and don't have a lot of walk in traffic. They can put in cheap if you demand it. ;-)

In my case the transmission place replaced my broken gear with what they call "good used" which basically means an intact gear out of some previous rebuild. I saw the used gear they put in and it looked brand new to me you could barely tell that it had already seen duty. It also had a part number on it unlike the broken gear that came out so I'm pretty sure it was an OEM gear. Since they warranty these transmissions for a year they must be pretty comfortable with it.

The Allpar site has a number of statements from various transmission people and they caution against use of non-Mopar gear sets. For the 41TE I have the Mopar front carrier gear is $157.51 and the rear carrier gear is $179.17 (planetaries) So you can easily see that only someone using this transmission for racing would pay more than $300 for race-quality gears, and that most people in the aftermarket would be looking to pay less than $300 for gearsets. That is why I think they caution on the Allpar site that the aftermarket Chinese gears are junk. Since so many of these transmissions busted gears in the 1993-and-earlier Ultradrives, there must have been a fairly strong demand for replacement gearsets at one time and the Chinese manufacturers stepped in to meet it with cheap gears.

As for other things besides gears, the aftermarket does produce a clutch pack with an extra 1-2 clutch which is better than the OEM and it produces heavy duty torque converters which are better than OEM. And it produces shift kits for this particular transmission, there seem to be 2 on the market. The one I got was not a "performance" shift kit, it is an "improvement" one which upgrades the accumulator and valve body to later specs. The performance shift kits I've seen are the Transgo 30-32RH 66-Up for the A604(41TE) that are advertised to "correct soft mushy 1-2 shift and late or extended 2-3 shift" As I had a TransGo shift kit in a C-4 once that stripped the splines on a torque converter, I have a rather low opinion of "performance" shift kits in automatic transmissions.

As to torque converters, the company I used remanufacturers their own converters in a different building, they make a "regular" and a "heavy duty" converter for the 41TE transmission. They didn't tell me what the difference is but they only use the heavy duty ones in reman transmissions they warranty, and these converters cost double what the regular ones cost. Supposedly, Dacco Performance Plus will make up a high stall converter for the 41TE, I cannot guess what the transmission computer might think about this, however.

Now, if you happen to have a minivan with the 3 speed automatic in it, the

31TH, then you have a whole range of race parts for it since this is the same trans as used in the PT cruiser and the 95-2000 Neon a lot of people are souping up those transmissions. Many companies make high stall converters, performance shift kits, and other various race-hardened internal parts for those transmissions. Performace Transmissions is said to warranty their race transmissions up to 400 hp though the 31TH. Since there's no computer with those transes, the go-fast techniques for those transmissions are the same ones that have been used on older transmissions. But all that stuff is terribly expensive. Obviously good quality if your willing to pay for it.

Ted

That's a really informative reply that explains a whole lot. Was most of the info just talking with the rebuilders? They seem pretty good. Your explanation really captured what was going on with your problem.

Thanks for the useful info. Next time I need a rebuild, I am going to ask more questions about the parts that they use. I look forward to seeing more pictures as you start putting your T&C back together.

I have a 1993 Voyager. The transmission was *rebuilt* by the dealer ten years ago, to fix the *bump stop* problem. It was under warranty. While it has worked fine since, I know that there have been further updates since that time. I am concerned that when the transmission starts to cause problems, the cost will exceed the value of the vehicle. While I have tried to keep it in good shape, I can't stop the depreciation clock.

-Kirk Matheson

I NEVER understand this argument. OK, let's say the transmission costs (pulling a number out of my ear) $2500 to repair. And that "exceeds the value" of the vehicle, presumably meaning that the blue book value of the vehicle is less than $2500.

So what?

Can you buy a functioning equivalent replacement vehicle for $2500? One that you're SURE is in as as good a shape as the one you've, in your own words, "tried to keep in good shape?" If the answer is "no" (and it WILL be) then it really didn't "exceed the value" of the vehicle, did it?

In this particular case, it's about the same so it's a tough call. One could say that the devil you know is better than the one you don't know. But on the other hand, you can get a new devil. A very good conditionws, well-kept version of this minivan can be had for around $2500, yes?

KBB book on a 93 Grand Voyager (long wheelbase van) with a big engine (3.3L preferably) is about $3K for a private party sale, a lot of it depends on the location your at. Here in the Pacific NW they don't salt the roads and so vehicle bodies literally do not rust out - you've seen the pics of the underside of my

11 year old van, and that van was abused by deliberately driving in the mud. Yet, no rust. Minivans here are also popular - we got a lot of skiers, sports fanatics, boaters, and such that like big vehicles to haul all their shit around in. Pickups are also very popular. So a used specimen that had working AC in it and perhaps slight denting would certainly fetch $3K maybe more.

Now, if you have a short wheelbase van with the smaller 2.5 engine in it,

2500 would probably be high. But, maybe not - with gas prices what they are now, you probably would get someone who would want it.

The $64 question with these minivans, though, is in that year anything with the 4 speed Ultradrive transmission is a risk. The Ultradrive (A604/41TE) wasn't really fully debugged until after 2000. By now, most vans still on the road that date from 1995 or earlier have almost certainly had 1 rebuilt transmission in them - and that rebuild could have been done in before the strengthened clutch packs and such were widely known about. So it kind of comes down to the need for a big fat-assed vehicle to go skiing with up on Mt Bachelor, vs the risk of your purchase blowing up and you having to drop $2500 into a new trans. Most people in that situation will take the risk, they figure they will get at least 1 good season out of them - that is why these vans still fetch a good price on the used market - if they are running. If not, nobody wants them.

Ted

Unfortunately, no. The rebuilders like to keep the people that actually work on the transmissions away from time-wasting customers. ;-) Seriously, while this may seem annoying it is actually a sign of a good business and that's what you want. Good businesses tend to make enough money to pay well, and good techs aren't going to waste their time working for peanuts. The key thing though, is whether or not that "front door" person, or service advisor, or whatever you want to call them, is really relaying your questions to someone in the back that knows what they are doing, or whether they are just BSing you.

I did a lot of research online, the Allpar site helped, and then asked a list of specific questions of the front end person at the rebuild place. That person then answered what they knew, and for the ones they didn't they talked to the actual tech and returned with the answers. I'm used to this kind of scenario and am used to separating the fact from fiction, and I'm not above asking questions that I already know the answer to just to see if the front door person is really talking to the rebuilder tech or just trying to BS me. ;-)

In this case the rebuilder wasn't really willing to speculate - of course they knew it was that gear once they got it apart, but beyond that I was pretty much on my own as to determining the cause that that gear was broken. But, once you see the entire set of carrier gears and every one of them looks great except for this one that looks beat to crap, it's pretty easy to deduce that the gear that's beat to hell is poorer quality, and why would the OEM go to the trouble of making a complex set of gears out of top-grade steel and in the middle of that set put in 1 poor quality gear? Then when the rebuilder confirmed that the trans had indeed been gone into once before, well now you know how that 1 gear got into the trans.

I also know positively that the prior owner (the person I bought it from) was responsible for breaking the transmission. I know this because he never bothered retitling it when he bought it and it still had the old title and old bill of sale, which listed a $1000 sale price. And if he was too cheap to retitle this, he would never have spent a grand on a van with a broken transmission. Since he gave me a c*ck and bull story about how the transmisson died, I also know he was doing something really stupid when he broke it. He was probably trying to pull a stump or some such.

Ted

That's another great reply which has me thinking. A 1994 minivan, short wheel base, 3.0 liter, not leaking oil but 199,000 miles. Trans has been rebuilt and reprogrammed so seems pretty good so far. Clean car but has the gray metallic paint which is peeling a bit on the hood and can see start of delamination, a little bit on the roof - would $2000 be unreasonable then for this vehicle? It's a plain vanilla model, no power windows but power door locks but that's about it. The infamous overdrive tranny, A604 now 41TE, cruise control but not the fancy trip computer. I'm asking because I'm just not sure. The rust is not much at all. Almost none. Maybe a little bit on the edge of one door which I can touch up since it's on the bottom edge of the door which appears to have been replaced, probably an accident on the driver's side. Any ideas? Car spent most of its life in south New Jersey, some snow, but was probably washed fairly regularly until I got it. Afraid the water will make it come apart.

Probably. The big detractor is the 3.0L engine which has known long term problems with the valve guides and valve seals. Now, if the heads had been done on it already (if there's receipts for them) that would be different. I would guess that most 3.0's to make it to 199,000 miles would have had the valve guides fall out and would have been redone once.

Also the paint delamination might scare off some buyers at that price. However, there's lots of people who do cheap repaints on just the hood and roof by just sanding down to the primer, repriming and painting and clearcoating. If the primer hasn't been compromised the results last pretty well, and a lot of times people don't bother to paint match on that kind of a job since it's hard to see the different colors anyway, espically on a light colored metallic, and the whole point is to keep the paint disintegration from letting rust hole the sheetmetal. You might find someone who would repaint those areas for $300 or so, you really ought to look into it before the delamination gets to the point that water is getting through the primer and rusting the base sheetmetal. Or if you don't care about the looks, you can do it yourself with wet grit sandpaper and masking tape and a rattle can. (the paint will not take a car wax readily, but it will seal out the water) You can easily practice on the hood by unbolting it and putting it in a makeshift paint booth and if your totally disgusted with the results, take the hood to a pro or find a good one in a wrecking yard.

What probably happened is the drivers door got smashed and they just got some random door out of a wrecker and did a quick repaint on it without proper prep, and now the cheap paint they used is failing.

Your actually a lot better off looking in the wrecking yards for a replacement grey metallic door with the original factory paint on it. Too bad you don't live out here, I just saw one in a U pullit yard a couple days ago. Grey metallic is like one of the most common colors they used.

Touchup paint over rust is a waste the rust will just keep going unless you take the door off, strip everything out of it (glass, door crank, inside panels, weatherstripping, etc.) and take it in to be bead blasted with plastic media which will strip it completely down to bare metal, then reprime and repaint. And they have to blast inside the door if there's rust there. And even if you do that with the best paint available it won't match the factory paint which was oven-baked on to the door originally - it's a hell of a lot cheaper to just find another door in a yard that is the right color.

How is the undercarriage? If it's not rusty then keep it that way by washing the underside regularly.

What you have is actually at the mileage point that a lot of people might not want to take a risk on buying it. You could get another 50K miles out of it by just keeping oil in it, or you could get another 5K. It is at that point where now the kind of maintainence that was done on it in it's history really matters. If the oil was regularly changed and the vehicle was maintained, then your OK. But a prospective buyer pretty much has to assume the worst and so they are going to assume the engine is ready to go kaput.

If it's got another 50K in it then it's definitely worth the $2K but there's no way to assure a buyer that it does, so your really best off just getting those

50K miles out of it yourself.

If it's straight, never been in an accident, and the interior is in good shape, and you really like it, then fix the door and hood and roof, and just wait for the engine to blow and when it does pull it out and have it rebuilt. Those mitties are great rebuild candidates since the short block itself doesen't have any fundamental problems and the top end stuff that they did wrong any good rebuilder is going to know about and know the fixes for. And those engines were common so rebuildable cores are cheap and plentiful.

Ted

transmissions.

I think the last computer update for the 41TE of that year was in 1995 or

1996 at the latest, it is probably running that code. However there have been lots of updates for internal parts.

The depreciation tables for vehicle value make the assumption that NO significant mechanical work has been done to the vehicle. It is really quite silly if you think about it. For example Kelly Blue Book only rates vehicles up to 20 years old. Most vehicles can't make it much beyond 200K miles without significant mechanical work. Thus, assuming 225K miles over a

20 year period, (11.25K miles per year) a vehicle's value depreciates to zero. So far so good.

However, what about a vehicle that has had 225K miles on the body, and had the powertrain replaced (both engine and transmission) with units with a warranty and has 0 miles on thise? It's value surely isn't zero, and it certainly is a bit more than the individual parts. For example suppose a rebuilt powertrain costs $5000, for a vehicle that is straight, no rust, good paint, immaculate interior, cleaned, and a rebuilt powertrain in it with no miles on that and a warranty, what do you think it's worth? In my opinion, more than $5000. Kelly Blue Book cannot establish a value for something like this because the quality of such vehicles varies all over the map. You could for example replace the powertrain with a junkyard one that has about 10K miles left on it, or you could replace only the engine and the transmission has about 50K miles left in it while the rebuilt engine will go 150K. And how are you going to rate those? That's why the depreciation tables ignore such vehicles.

Keep in mind that houses do not depreciate, yet everyone who has owned a home knows that houses are -constantly- having things go wrong with them that need repair. The reason they don't depreciate (usually) is that people continually repair them. The reason that vehicles DO depreciate is that most people do NOT maintain them to the level they maintain a home - thus their ownership is "extractive", they extract the value out of the vehicle by letting the little stuff go.

So what it really boils down to with your Voyager is the following:

1) Do you really like the vehicle a lot and want to keep it for a long time? 2) Is the vehicle's bodywork and interior in good repair? 3) If you do put a lot of money into it could you insure it with a collision policy that would value the vehicle plus your repairs, not just book value? (most insurance companies do take this kind of thing into account)

If you can answer yes to all of these then you shouldn't worry about doing a major engine or transmission rebuild on your '93 Voyager.

Ted

That's a lot of really good info. Getting a new door cheaper than repainting a bad one. I'm sorry I moved away from a bunch of wrecking yards. Not unhappy either because some of the yards were for stolen cars - so either chop shops or squash them into scrap metal depending on new or old stolen cars. You could always tell the criminal junk yards, the people inside were nasty and seemed right out of the Sopranos. Funny on tv. Not so funny in real life.

Anyway, I think I may be lucky in regard to the valves. I have a 1994 Voyager and was told by the dealer parts' guy that they fixed the valves in 1994. So I may have lucked on that one problem.

THanks for the detailed info. I really liked your metaphor about the house. Explains a lot. This mitsu engine has had not work on it that I know of. That's good and that's bad. I don't even know if the timing chain has been replaced in the last 120,000 miles. Oops, timing belt. So the car really needs $1,000 worth of basic maintenance I would reckon. Timing belt and water pump replacement, replace one sealed front wheel bearing just starting to go, replace one failing oxygen sensor, replace coolant fluid, and should last for a while longer. About $300+ in parts and $700+ in labor - if I do it, subtract labor and add $100+ in tools and $100+ in medical repairs.