Transmission blew up, how long is reasonable to last?

Joe_Horner

djcat wrote: »

Good evening,

Some internals let go and shot through the differential and made a hole and a bump through it, locking the front wheels whilst driving!

vikingaero wrote: »

Most dealerships only replace components rather than replace them: "That'll be a whole new gearbox Sir..."

In this case they're probably right!:rotfl:

Just over 3 years / less than 50k does sound too short for "reasonable" life on a gearbox, even without regular servicing - more so with. Not sure that many service schedules include gearbox oil nowadays, but they should have picked up any leaks - as should it's first MOT which it must have just had. Significant oil leaks are a pretty standard avisory even though they're not a fail.

Not quite sure how things are supposed to suffer wear and tear "regardless of age or mileage" and, in any case, a sudden catastrophic failure is very unlikely to be caused by "wear and tear". Noise / difficult changes / jumping out of gear yes, seizure without warning no!

djcat

Joe_Horner wrote: »

In this case they're probably right!:rotfl:

Just over 3 years / less than 50k does sound too short for "reasonable" life on a gearbox, even without regular servicing - more so with. Not sure that many service schedules include gearbox oil nowadays, but they should have picked up any leaks - as should it's first MOT which it must have just had. Significant oil leaks are a pretty standard avisory even though they're not a fail.

Not quite sure how things are supposed to suffer wear and tear "regardless of age or mileage" and, in any case, a sudden catastrophic failure is very unlikely to be caused by "wear and tear". Noise / difficult changes / jumping out of gear yes, seizure without warning no!

Thank you! So I know that I am not the only one with that logic....

BTW: My car passed its first MOT with absolutely no advisories whatsoever.

maninthestreet

Never had a gear box self-destruct on me in almost 30 years of car ownership. I drove a Vauxhall Cavalier for almost 100,000 miles in just under 4 years on the same clutch and gearbox (most of it non-motorway driving).

djcat

And here is what happened to my transmission: A massive chunk of metal just broke off! Garage manager said its nothing that either maintenance or driving style could have made any difference.

Tilt

There you go then. They should fix it at no cost to you. SOGA applies although i'm guessing that Alfa will come good here.

djcat

Tilt wrote: »

There you go then. They should fix it at no cost to you. SOGA applies although i'm guessing that Alfa will come good here.

I hope so, because Warranty Direct's engineer thinks it is wear & tear. I don't know which planet their engineers come from, but on the planet that I live wear & tear means continuous loss of material due to usage, not a suddenly exploding gearbox punching a hole through its walls with less than 45k miles on the clock. I was so speechless by that statement that all I could say was "please send me the engineer's report asap!" and hung up.

The damages they want me to sit on are now beyond GBP 3000.00 including stripping the gearbox because of WD's insistance on doing so, I am just happy I complained to Alfa Romeo and the dealership before this was done...

I am getting quite frustrated by this back and forth and the dealership's manager was also speechless about WD's answer. I will now proceed with a claim against the dealership and AR if they don't fix it.

forgotmyname

djcat wrote: »

Garage manager said its nothing that either maintenance or driving style could have made any difference.

Warranty company may see it differently, It wouldnt have failed if you didnt drive it :rotfl:

If you drive a car you must expect things to fail.


I would love to see how they can put that down to wear and tear.

Seen plenty of failed bearings and the outer race doesnt usually end up in bits. Usually the bearings fall out and destroy everything else.

Johnmcl7

djcat wrote: »

I hope so, because Warranty Direct's engineer thinks it is wear & tear. I don't know which planet their engineers come from, but on the planet that I live wear & tear means continuous loss of material due to usage, not a suddenly exploding gearbox punching a hole through its walls with less than 45k miles on the clock. I was so speechless by that statement that all I could say was "please send me the engineer's report asap!" and hung up.

They come from the planet where they refuse to pay out money as much as possible as that costs money, I did take out a Warranty Direct policy and didn't again as I found their claims department very difficult to deal with.

Good luck getting it sorted, that's disgraceful behaviour from both the dealer and the warranty company.

John

jase1

I had a Nissan Primera, which is apparently known for "weak" gearboxes (cf. Honest John website).

Didn't stop my car reaching 265,000 miles that I know of without needing any box repairs!