Transmission Equals Gearbox In Car Talk
The average driver has an elementary understanding of a transmission at best. They know it can be either manual or automatic and it has something to do with shifting gears. That’s about it! No, wait, they also know that if they need to replace their transmission it is going to seriously affect the college fund for their child. Nothing strikes fear in a car owner like a gear slipping or not engaging properly because that generally means a major outlay of cash to repair or replace that mysterious transmission. So what is a transmission and what does it really do?
In the simplest terms, the transmission takes the power from the engine and sends it to the wheels. In complicated terms, the transmission or gearbox provides speed and torque conversions from the engine to the drive wheels. To put it another way, the revolutions of an engine are much higher than the revolutions of the wheels, so there has to be a mechanism that converts the difference to make things run properly. When a transmission begins to wear out (usually after 100,000 miles) the driver will notice that the car will slip out of gear occasionally or suddenly shift into neutral. This can happen for awhile until suddenly it becomes impossible to shift into any gear and at that point your car is going nowhere. The engine will continue to purr nicely but power will not be transferred to the wheels so you basically have a wonderful driveway ornament that makes noise but does nothing else. At this point fear sets in because replacement parts for a transmission are not cheap by anyone’s standards.
Estimates from a mechanic can run between $1800 to $3500 depending on the make and model of your vehicle. Manual transmissions usually cost less than automatic transmissions but any way you slice this piece of pie there are serious bucks involved in fixing it. As an added note, Japanese transmissions on average last longer than American-built transmissions, which should come as no surprise to anyone who has researched cars. The Japanese simply make better engines.
So what do you do once that slippage begins? Well, in other articles we have suggested that you go to a salvage yard, buy a used part at considerable savings, and replace the part yourself. And there is no doubt that savings on transmissions can be had by doing so. Unfortunately, replacing a transmission requires considerable knowledge and the average driver simply does not have that knowledge. So the best you can hope for, if you are not mechanically gifted, is to shop around. By calling as many mechanics as possible and getting quotes you will at least assure yourself that you are paying the least possible for what is bound to be an expensive repair. In a perfect world there would be a better solution, but this is not a perfect world and in the case of replacing a transmission there are no easy fixes.
