hey guys...to fill you in on my scenario...last week my car randomly wouldnt shift into gear...i was cruising at 40 and went to shift from 3rd to 4th and it wouldnt go into 4th. i tried other gears to no avail. i had the car towed to the dealership where i part time on saturdays figuring my tech freind would help me out. he has been busy with a move so i asked someone else who knows his way around my year/engine/tranny since he has one. he looks at my car and tells me its a clutch which needs to be replaced. this was done 35k ago. i assumed it would be linkage...first off any thoughts on the issue as to why a clutch would fail (not wear out) and to the next part....he had been reluctant to give me a price on the job. i finally asked quite insistantly today...he quoted at 400 -450 ....my tech friend who works with this guy suggested 200 - 250 would be a good price to pay for a tech on the side...note this is not affiliated with the dealership and the tech will be doing this on his time. in addition more than one person told me his ability to do clutch jobs on my car in 3 hours....when he quoted me the price he said for me to remember to take into account it woudl officially be 8...i feel like he is trying to screw me and try and be nice about it. i didnt quite hear what he said was specifically wrong with my clutch. me and my friends have no problem doing it but i dont want to not fix the problem if i replace the clutch...would you guys have any suggestions to extract more info while also either barganing down the price or telling him no....

thanks for any help

 

I had a problem exactly like yours. Mine turned out to be the clutch slave cylinder being blown. (E36 BMW M3) You may want to check on that; it's usually a much easier fix than a new clutch--and a clutch is unlikely after 35k miles (unless you are riding the clutch like a mofo).

 

Is this with parts included? If so, that's a great deal and I'd do it without hesitation. Otherwise, it's reasonable. That is the main perk of being a good tech. You can charge by what the "book" says, and not by how long it actually takes.

 

I can personally vouch for the amount of time: If the tech has done an S clutch before it should take 3-4 hours. Motor has to be dropped down and the tranny removed and other fun stuff like the PITA starter bolt, so it is a bitch job to do.

If that 400-450 price includes parts you should throw the money at him and call yourself lucky, if it is 400-450 plus 250 to pay the tech then you should probably get a stage 2 clutch or at least a stage 2 pressure plate, street disc and a lighter flywheel for close to that amount of money IMHO

 

ok.. chances are its not a clutch, its commonly miss diagnosed. have them check the slave cylinder for you before they do any clutch work. also more info would be good, ie if you were doing any hard driving or anything to the car prior to this. you say you were cruising and went to shift and the car wouldnt go in gear, if the clutch was bad it would still go in gear it would just slip. now its possible it could be a presure plate problem but usually if the car wont go in any gear its gonna be the slave cylinder. how many miles total are on the car?

 

I had this same problem, Honda said it was the clutch. I paid for that. They replaced it and it still happened. They then said the slave cylinder, Covered under warranty, they replaced that, Then they did three different TSBs they paid for that. Still happened. I had to go to another dealership because I stopped trusting the first one. They found out the problem was due to not maintaining the flux capacitor. Not covered under warranty $2100.00, problem solved. Make sure you get that flux capacitor replaced every 30,000 miles. Good luck

 

Damn, I'm approaching this mileage. Where is a good shop to get my FC replaced? I was thinking PepBoys, but I got a hookup with my boyz at L-Town Auto Garage.

 

best place to get the Flux capacitor is at napa, go in and ask for the very friendly michael waltrip and he will give you the special racers discount

 

I tried NAPA when I hit 60k but they didn't have the part, those dumb hitz didn't even know what I was talking about! I looked around for a while but because I didn't have the time and didn't want to risk another problem I went back to the same Honda dealership. Cost me $70 to replace it.

 

I had this happen with a car. You can put the car into gear when the engine is off, but not when the car is running, correct? The slave cylinder was my problem.