Well, he's finally alive again!
It is however, a bittersweet victory. Sweet, because obviously it's great to finally have my car back in "normal" working order after so many months of running in second gear, or not at all.
Bitter, because they ended up putting a '93 tranny in. Nobody seems to have any idea what they were doing wrong with the '98 swap, since everything seemed to test fine with the transmission out of the car, but it turns out putting in another '93 trans. fixed everything right up. Well, sort of.
I say "sort of" because while the car seems to be working now, there's a few things I question. I want to get your guys' feedback before I take it back into the shop for warranty repair, if needed. (Really, the only reason I think I took it out of the shop as-is was because I was sick of not having it, and I had too many other people in my life who were getting even more fed up with it.)
The shifts are SOFT! I used to be able to feel the 1-2 shift pretty well, and even chirped the tires now and then under WOT or fishtail it if the road was wet enough. Now I've pretty much got to be listening to the engine or paying attention to the tachometer to have any clue that the car is shifting! This is probably "stock condition" and it may be that my old transmission actually had a J-Mod or something, so I'm willing to accept it as long as it continues to live. It's just plain freaky to me though.
The car is QUIET on the highway! Again, something I'll probably have to get used to. But after having to drive the car in 2nd gear so long, I've become quite acclimated to actually hearing my engine at highway speeds. Now, it's like there's nothing there at all.
Shifts are late in WOT. The guy at the transmission shop says this is the normal shift point, but what do you guys think? I thought the 1-2 shift was supposed to be dead-on at 6000 RPM in WOT? Mine gets closer to 6500-6600 before it finally shifts now.
Speedometer feels way off. Again, this could be just because I've gotten used to hearing and feeling my car at 4000 RPM on the highway, but I don't think that everyone was doing 85-90 MPH on SR 417 this morning! For the non-locals, SR 417 is mostly a 65 MPH highway and I usually start passing most of traffic if I'm doing about 80-ish.
Also of note, he said that they put some form of ATF fluid in (don't remember what number or other descriptors he gave), when I'd mentioned before that it needs Mercon V. He says it's a close enough match, but I'm more inclined to believe you guys if it's not. Is it worth taking it back to have him flush and refill with Merc V? Do you think it's something he'd do under warranty, if approached about it?
On the upside, despite all the hell they've supposedly gone through swapping transmissions in and out and trying to rebuild the '98 to work in my '93, they still stuck to the original quote of a little under $1400 for the rebuild and installation.
It is however, a bittersweet victory. Sweet, because obviously it's great to finally have my car back in "normal" working order after so many months of running in second gear, or not at all.
Bitter, because they ended up putting a '93 tranny in. Nobody seems to have any idea what they were doing wrong with the '98 swap, since everything seemed to test fine with the transmission out of the car, but it turns out putting in another '93 trans. fixed everything right up. Well, sort of.
I say "sort of" because while the car seems to be working now, there's a few things I question. I want to get your guys' feedback before I take it back into the shop for warranty repair, if needed. (Really, the only reason I think I took it out of the shop as-is was because I was sick of not having it, and I had too many other people in my life who were getting even more fed up with it.)
The shifts are SOFT! I used to be able to feel the 1-2 shift pretty well, and even chirped the tires now and then under WOT or fishtail it if the road was wet enough. Now I've pretty much got to be listening to the engine or paying attention to the tachometer to have any clue that the car is shifting! This is probably "stock condition" and it may be that my old transmission actually had a J-Mod or something, so I'm willing to accept it as long as it continues to live. It's just plain freaky to me though.
The car is QUIET on the highway! Again, something I'll probably have to get used to. But after having to drive the car in 2nd gear so long, I've become quite acclimated to actually hearing my engine at highway speeds. Now, it's like there's nothing there at all.
Shifts are late in WOT. The guy at the transmission shop says this is the normal shift point, but what do you guys think? I thought the 1-2 shift was supposed to be dead-on at 6000 RPM in WOT? Mine gets closer to 6500-6600 before it finally shifts now.
Speedometer feels way off. Again, this could be just because I've gotten used to hearing and feeling my car at 4000 RPM on the highway, but I don't think that everyone was doing 85-90 MPH on SR 417 this morning! For the non-locals, SR 417 is mostly a 65 MPH highway and I usually start passing most of traffic if I'm doing about 80-ish.
Also of note, he said that they put some form of ATF fluid in (don't remember what number or other descriptors he gave), when I'd mentioned before that it needs Mercon V. He says it's a close enough match, but I'm more inclined to believe you guys if it's not. Is it worth taking it back to have him flush and refill with Merc V? Do you think it's something he'd do under warranty, if approached about it?
On the upside, despite all the hell they've supposedly gone through swapping transmissions in and out and trying to rebuild the '98 to work in my '93, they still stuck to the original quote of a little under $1400 for the rebuild and installation.