Good mechanic in Austin, TX

That would be the cost of overhauling the entire transmission, so they are probably trying to rip you off since you are a female (I am assuming by your name).

I hate to say this, but if you have male friend, ask him to get some quotes for you. Look in the yellow pages or on-line for a shop that specializes in Toyota repairs, or try a Toyota dealer.

Sounds like an OK price to me - I think the Toyota dealer here gets about $915 for that job.

"That job" means replacing the clutch, throwout bearning, and pressure plate, not just the clutch disk itself.

yup. female. i'm not even going there as it makes me furious.

-Beth

you know, i didn't specify that it was a 2WD truck. i wonder if that rough estimate was for a 4WD because, as you know, 4WD = instantly add on 300 more bucks in labor. ;)

-Beth

You may have already gotten a quote from a "good" mechanic........

What you seem to be seeking right now, however, is a quote from a "cheaper" mechanic.....

Parts are cheap enough. These are list prices for the 4 cyl. non-turbo.

Clutch $67 Pilot Bearing $9 Release Bearing $44 Release Fork $27 Pressure Plate $72 Flywheel (new, if needed) $308

Shouldn't need to replace the rear seal unless it is leaking or they have to pull the flywheel.

Feel free to do it yourself. Be forewarned: it is a messy, hard job.

Normally, the rear main and the flywheel don't need to be replaced/resurfaced. True, there are exceptions.

There is a mechanic there in Austin who is well respected with foreign and special cars, and I will try to dig up my service records. He worked on my Reatta before I took delivery. If I can find the references, I will forward to you.

Sounds about right, given the fact that you have to drop the transmission to change a clutch (labor time= $$). And reassembly requires careful alignment of all the parts. That's about what a co-worker paid recently at an Austin shop for a domestic truck.

$400 is a good price for a clutch...

i live in austin and have for about 12 years. I can recommend a good mechanic who has worked on my '96 4runner many times and i've always been happy with the quality of the work and the price. The place is called Don's Automotive and you can get his info at

that rear seal is 177K/16 years old. it can drive itself to the mechanic.

it's gonna get replaced cuz murphy's law of vehicles states that once you've removed the Very Large Thing that is required to r'n'r a seal, if you don't replace it, it'll start leaking within 1000 miles.

oh my! i might stain my frilly dress!!! break a nail!

-Beth

that's why the Powers That Be toss in that handy clutch alignment tool in those clutch kits.

i didn't make myself clear on the original post so i might sound a little snappy here: i am experienced at working on cars and motorcycles. i do all the work on my motorcycle and truck. that doesn't just mean tune-ups and oil, btw. i understand what goes into r'n'r-ing a clutch. on top of this, i work for the company that makes _the_ premiere automotive aftermarket catalog and let's just say i'm not their receptionist or a frilly-froo-froo salesperson. that company's old name rhymes with Driad.

my gut felt that 600 was a bit steep and 700 just plain riggin' friduculous. jobber price for a Sacs clutch kit for this truck is $116. hell, i can go down to the local CarQuest shop and buy the kit for $125 as your local idiot off the street w/ cash in hand. resurfacing the flywheel costs the shop maybe 30 bucks. let's say that labor is 75 bucks an hour. do you mean to tell me that a highly trained mechanic armed with good tools, a lift and a tranny jack is going to take 7 hours to do my clutch? or course, the shop is going to turn around and try to sell the parts to me to me at full list of $199... so 6 hours to do my clutch? not. more like 3-4 real hours on the lift, 125 in parts (including rear main) and 30 for the machine shop. hell, i'll let them mark the parts up to $199.

my gut feels that $500 is a more of a reasonable price to pay using good parts and, hey, guess what? after making a few more calls from recommendations, i got quotes in that range, which includes resurfacing the flywheel and replacing the rear main. in fact, the original shop who gave me the 600-700 quote turned around and requoted me $550 after i laid down the law, mumbling something about assuming that my truck was a

rant over. thanks to everyone who gave meaningful advice and marriage proposals.

-Beth

Y'all don't sound like the type to worry too much about those things. I might damage my manicure, but I don't worry too much about it. (That's one of the reasons I started getting manicures in the first place, is I was roughing up my fingers more than I could decently repair the damage.)

Charles of Kankakee

I wasn't thinking about you or your clothing. Having done more than a few clutch replacements in my life, I can tell you that this is a difficult job even if you have a lift. You do have a lift, right?

Understood from later posts, I was simply pointing out that no matter WHO does the job, its a pretty time-consuming job. A clutch is one of those jobs where the labor cost/parts cost ratio is a fairly large number, unlike (for example) bolting in a new engine controller which has a very low labor rate/parts cost ratio. Also one of the reasons I don't tend to buy manual trans vehicles... I love driving them, just don't like clutch jobs ever 100k miles.

BTW- for some unknown reason I too was assuming it was a 4x4... don't know why, since it was never stated or implied anywhere.

sorry about snipping at you. i get defensive sometimes due to prior bad experiences.

yeah, it's a dirty job and it's an even dirtier job if you do it w/o a lift. even though i keep the undercarriage of the truck pretty clean, it's still grimy. i got dirty enough replacing the shocks and that's a minor, minor job.

i have access to a tranny jack but it's still awkward to wrestle w/ a tranny on the ground, as compared to having the truck up in the air. upper body strength is a must and i'm afraid i don't have much of it.

i love a challenge, though. maybe next time.

-Beth

maybe i come across as a 4x4 type of woman? :) don't know. i really wanted a 4x4 when i was shopping for this truck. my stepmom, the infinitely sensible, talked me out of it. she said "a lot of things you'll need to have done in a shop will cost tons more." thank you, mom. as usual, you're right.

there's no arguing - pulling a tranny is a labor intensive job. also, you never know WHAT you're going to find when you agree to do a job like that. it could be an easy job and you take 2.5 actual hours. it could turn into a major nightmare and take 8 hours and you have a dead vehicle up on the lift for 2 days waiting for parts. i can understand a shop wanting to quote high hours, especially on a high mileage vehicle that's 16 years old.

No offense taken, and no apology necessary, Beth.

I spent a few years as an import auto mechanic (back in my post high school daxe...me and my pal Lucas, Prince of Darkness) and one day I got to the point that I earned enough money to pay others to do the 'hard stuff'. Now I let the trade professionals do those jobs that I just don't want to do... which includes just about any work that requires putting the car on a lift . Someitimes it bothers me to see the absurd prices that these 'experts' ask, but on the other hand it just isn't worth the pain and hassle for me to do it, so most of the time I just grin and bear it. I think of it as my small contribution to the U.S. economy.

I admire you for tackling your own shocks, I'm not sure I'd even want to do that job.

Good luck - I'm sure the clutch job will turn out great for you.