Vauxhall Astra needs new gearbox- only 17,000 mileage

jaydeeuk1

ayesha265 wrote: »

Vauxhall dealer have quoted £3.9k. I've decided to take the risk and go ahead with them. £40 to take car from one garage to another. Here's hoping it's worth it and Vauxhall stick to their word and pay at least 50%!

So you given them the go ahead without seeing if vauxhall will contribute? What happens if/when it goes wrong again in 18 months, how long is the work warranted for?

BeenThroughItAll

ayesha265 wrote: »

Vauxhall dealer have quoted £3.9k. I've decided to take the risk and go ahead with them. £40 to take car from one garage to another. Here's hoping it's worth it and Vauxhall stick to their word and pay at least 50%!

FOUR GRAND?


MAIN DEALER?


Madness. Sheer madness.

daltonss

£3.9k for a replacement gearbox is a lot for that vehicle even for a main dealer. I maybe inflating the price on purpose to negate the so called 'good will gesture'.

b33r

I have a Vauxhall Astra 1.6, however mine's a manual, a little bit older but it will be the same shape as yours.

Just wanted to point out something that no one seems to picked up on and highlighted and I'm not sure if you've realised but "Service Vehicle Soon" on this model of Astra doesn't actually mean you need to service the vehicle soon and is instead the replacement for the engine management light.

The message you'd get for needing a service is 'Change engine oil soon'

My local dealer agreed how poor the wording is and said I was one of the few to actually realise this (I only found out by googling when I assumed the same as you but had just had a service so was intending to just reset it myself).

Anyway if it comes on it needs a diagnostic plugging in (pretty quickly!) to establish the actual fault code in the background.

About 6 months ago I had it and it was also the dodgy thermostat, I'm not the original owner but as vauxhall have acknowledged the thermostat has a known fault (see here) they contributed to the repair and I didn't pay as much as you for a new one (they only charged me for the part, not the labour, can't remember exactly the cost, probably ~£90).

Afraid I can't offer you any advice on the gearbox problem.

BeenThroughItAll

daltonss wrote: »

£3.9k for a replacement gearbox is a lot for that vehicle even for a main dealer. I maybe inflating the price on purpose to negate the so called 'good will gesture'.

That's an insightful statement for someone who has just asked how much it'll cost to get their brakes looked at. Assuming you're not a mechanical expert, have you some experience of replacement Astra auto gearboxes to draw on?

bigjl

BeenThroughItAll wrote: »

That's an insightful statement for someone who has just asked how much it'll cost to get their brakes looked at. Assuming you're not a mechanical expert, have you some experience of replacement Astra auto gearboxes to draw on?

No but I think he has experience of M3 and Audi gearboxes.

In the case of the OP £3.9k is not unexpected for Main Dealer rates but only if it is a brand new factory gearbox.

I would expect a good specialist Autobox place could sort out a Recon box for an awful lot less than that.

I know my old work had the older Autobox reconditioned for £1500. Was fine till the car got smashed up beyond repair.

bigjl

Just re read.

If they are paying half it isn't the end of the world.

You will have Main Dealer back up in future.

BeenThroughItAll

bigjl wrote: »

No but I think he has experience of M3 and Audi gearboxes.

If he has, he's got wise on his posting style. Time will tell, but I'm not going to make that call just yet.

daltonss

I don't need to have mechanical car knowledge to know main car deals are over priced as it is. using common sense tells me they could be trying to over inflate the price and then say here is a 30% of parts labour or whatever discount bringing it down to the normal price

daltonss

what has m3 and audi gearboxes got do with anything? a gearbox is just a gearbox, bet you half of them use the same supplier anyway weather it is Vauxhall or audi. doesn't change the fact that £3.9k is a lot for a replacement gearbox even for main dealers. might be better of trying somewhere else