The ZF auto transmission in my Volvo has died and so needs another. My current plan is to buy a cheap run-around and look for a scrapper donor car to turn up. But , as an alternative, what is the cost of a recon trans? and what should be aware of when buying said item?
Sam
They recon that a second hand Autobox isnt a very good long term investment. My mate is having his ZF HP22 box ( the one with the known problem, see google) rebuilt with a new torque converter and a years warranty for "about £500 " Sounds like quite good value to me. Steve the grease
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It certainly does. I had a bill of over 800 quid for the 3 speed GM box on my SD1. Including fitting. It's my understanding that ZF boxes are at the difficult end of the scale to work on, and have high parts prices.
Thats with the box delivered to the guy removed from vehicle and cleaned. Steve the grease
£500 is very cheap indeed. I would expect to pay that for a recon ZF convertor alone. HP22's, properly recon'd, will be £1000+, probably more like £1500 for one that lasts more than a year!
Did you check if you got the same box back? These cheap re-cons are often just secondhand boxes cleaned up.
I've just had the one in my Range Rover replaced with a recon - 1300 quid fitted (includes Torque Convertor).
Midland Automatic Transmissions in Kettering - the first box they put in packed up after 2000 miles, but they were absolutely superb, collected the car, lent me a car to go to work in and had it back to me the next day. Highly reccommended - good guys. No bull when the first one went wrong either. They were surprised as they (say they) don't get that happening often, but fixed it with a good grace and apologies to me.
The message from "Simon Atkinson " contains these words:
That's about the best you can expect, isn't it. Everybody has something that goes wrong just after we've worked on it from time to time but like you say it's how they pick up the bits that matters.
:-)
Yep - the replacement box has now done 5000ish miles and is as good as gold. Much more positive on the changes and controllable on the kickdown than the old one ever was.
The message from "Simon Atkinson " contains these words:
Wish I could say the same about the wife's Clio 3-speed non-tronic box. It holds 2nd for too long when warm.
Renault auto? Only Ford make/made worse ones.
The message from Dave Plowman contains these words:
Yeah, so I gather. It ain't a promble really and it doesn't seem to be getting worse.
You obviously haven't tried an early-80s VW box. It really spoils the car, IMHO.
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