Snap ring Problem.. Need help!

[Smoothaccel]

Yesterday, I took my car to get my clutch/gears installed only to findout that my transmission number is smack in the middle of the "snap ring range" The mechanic said that I brought it in at the perfect time. One more week and I would have had a disaster. The cir clip had just started breaking in bit by bit. There were about 60% of the clip remaining that was holding the entire shaft in there. The mechanic said: that was the reason for my gears grind while shifting. all my syncros were in great shape.

My delima, How do I get Acura to help me with this. The car is a 92 so it is out of warranty but this is not a wear and tear. It is clearly a fauly in the design of the gearbox. It is about $1000.00 in parts that I did not plan for with the most expensive part being the bell housing. The bell housing is over $800. The main difference is the location of the circlip on the housings. This really Sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Smoothaccel]

MY LUCK WITH THIS CAR?????????.. Who knows someone who wants a black 92 with low mileage!

 

[DONYMO]

At NSXPO, the Acura guy told us that they will REQUEST a goodwill repair, but that it has not been granted in many years. I say bite the bullet and buy the part. I certainly would not sell my NSX if I were in your shoes. I WOULD, however, go the route of trying to get Acura to goodwill it...you never know.

 

[nsxtasy]

The warranty on a '92 NSX was good for three years or 36K miles, whichever came first. Acura was offering assistance on a goodwill basis when performing snap ring repairs on the '92 for three or four years after the warranty expired in '95. Your car is now ten years old and it would be highly unusual for them to offer any assistance on a goodwill basis. Fortunately, you caught yours while it is still an inexpensive repair; had you kept driving on it, it would have been much more expensive to fix.

For those who own snap ring cars, or who don't know what we're talking about, read through the "Transmission (incl Snap Ring)" section (under the Troubleshooting heading) of the FAQ, including Mark Basch's advice on what to do and how to recognize when a problem is occurring so that you can still get it fixed inexpensively.

 

[Larry Bastanza]

Smoothaccel,

It is certainly true as Ken points out, Acura is not really "goodwilling" this any more. If you have spend a significant amount of bucks with a given dealer and have been a customer for years, maybe they would consider it, but a very big long shot.

You quoted a few parts prices. This is an area I think you can help to save yourself some money. You can get the case for a minimum of 25% off list at MANY NSXCA favoring dealers, like www.hondacuraworld.com (Tim Poliniak) or Neillo Acura (Eric Milam) I would do some homework and get a list of the parts and prices you need. In a diplomatic way suggest these prices to the dealer and ASK if they could consider helping you out.

If you approach them in a non-defensive way, they may help. They are getting the money for the labor, and they are not "giving" you the part, it's certainly worth a try.

Let's make lemonade out of lemons!!

I recall a price of $473, my cost for the case half, from these dealers about 1 year ago when I researched it. As an example, if you just got that at this kind of discount the pain is less

.

Good Luck.

HTH,
LarryB

 

[Smoothaccel]

Larry, I went ahead and requested them to complete the job. The service manager said that he will call the District Rep. to see what they can do with the parts. I will just have to "bite the bullet" if there is no Goodwill
Vance

 

[MYNSX]

I went thru it too on my 1st NSX (the yellow MYNSX) I figured while were in there lets do
this that and EVERTHING (I'll Show Them!!)
Now look at the FRANKENSTIEN they made me create!! "ALIIIIIIVE" LOL

I was very angry as I did not have the correct # when I originally checked the tranny,so I bought it and never negotiated for the "potential" snap ring failure.

I'm past it now but you bringing it up reminds me of how I felt cheated or whatever.Its an old post I'm sure others have had "similar" posts but it was kinda funny seing me "lose my cool" (in hindsight of course).
Good Luck anyway.



------------------
WWW.MYNSX.COM

 

[Hiroshima]

I second the response that repeat visits at the same dealer and a solid realtionship really helps when it comes to large repairs. I had some AC issues a while back. Replaced a condensor, one of the high pressure pipes, 3 refils, and THEN they found out that it was the evaporator in the dash. ( Although the condensor was PART of the problem) Well to make a long story short, they ended up taking a chunk off the bill for some of the old freon chrages (they are something like $120 each time {labor + Freon}) and really helped me out. I asked about goodwill on the evaporator since that seems to be an issue but it was politely denied. Paid for it and have since forgotten about it. I say just do it,.. easy for me to say now, since I have forgotten about the money I spent

Good luck, and as Ken said, you ARE lucky, you could be spending more than the $1000 they are quoting you. Still sucks though, I can understand that.

[This message has been edited by Hiroshima (edited 15 November 2002).]

 

[nsxtasy]

Originally posted by Larry Bastanza:
You can get the case for a minimum of 25% off list at MANY NSXCA favoring dealers, like

Goodson Acura, home of the NSX Service Girl.

 

[Smoothaccel]

Today I got my car back. The new gears and exedy clutch is good. I am very happy with the feel of the short gears. Now about the snap ring thing. The service manager said that he covered the price of the parts and my invoice shows the discount. However, the cost of labor alone was a wopping $1600.00. This is for Clutch install, Gears install, SnapRing tranny replace, and compression test of engine. I was curious! about the compression. Maybe Larry or someone can breakdown this for me. I figured that was high because all the tranny work was done at the same time. I will have to talk to the mechanic on monday because I did not look at the invoice when I got it.
I will comment about the Exedy clutch on another post.

 

[sjs]

Roughly 20 hours labor sounds real high, but if you really didn't pay anything for the case and related parts then you made out OK overall. So perhaps they padded labor to make up for the parts. They may even have had a used case, and by not charging you for it they may feel justified in not disclosing that it's used. (I doubt this but toss it out as a possibility.)

 

[Jimbo]

I would have guessed 16 hours of labor for that work. 20 may not have been that out of line.

-Jim

------------------
1992 NSX Red/Blk 5 spd #0330
1991 NSX Blk/Blk Auto #3070 (Sold)
1974 Vette 454 4 spd Wht/Blk
1976 Honda Accord 5 spd, 3 door Blue/Blue
1977 Honda Accord - Custom - Under Construction
1986 Chevy Suburban
http://homepage.mac.com/jimanders/PhotoAlbum1.html

 

[nsxtasy]

Originally posted by Jimbo:
I would have guessed 16 hours of labor for that work. 20 may not have been that out of line.

For all we know, it may have been 16 hours rather than 20; it depends on the hourly rate. All we know is that it totalled $1600, and hourly rates at dealers these days are anywhere from $70 to $100 or so.

Smoothaccel, how many hours of labor did they charge you for?

 

[Jimbo]

I wasn't commenting on the price but the time suggested by SJS. For the work that was done (Clutch install, Gears install, SnapRing tranny replace, and compression test of engine), if it was approximately 16-20 hours of labor, regardless of the cost, that doesn't sound too out of whack to me.

-Jim

------------------
1992 NSX Red/Blk 5 spd #0330
1991 NSX Blk/Blk Auto #3070 (Sold)
1974 Vette 454 4 spd Wht/Blk
1976 Honda Accord 5 spd, 3 door Blue/Blue
1977 Honda Accord - Custom - Under Construction
1986 Chevy Suburban
http://homepage.mac.com/jimanders/PhotoAlbum1.html



[This message has been edited by Jimbo (edited 18 November 2002).]

 

[Smoothaccel]

Jimbo, NSXtasy I will call today and findout the details. I was quoted less hours before the job.

 

[sjs]

Originally posted by Jimbo:
I would have guessed 16 hours of labor for that work. 20 may not have been that out of line.

-Jim

If I'm paying the bill then the extra $320-400 would seem pretty out of line to me, both as a % and in actual dollars. But I'd guess a tech familiar with the process, such as those at Basch's shop, would do it all in 12 or less.

Part of the problem is that there probably is no "book" time on much of the work, and even where there is, some of it is work not often done. So they must estimate high to allow the tech time for thought, research, questions, nut scratching, etc. The idea is that at worst they'll come out OK and at best they'll clean up. That's not a slam, it's just how they need to deal with uncommon non-book work.

 

[tmc/nsx]

I know how you feel! 3 month's after I bought my 92' the snap ring failed. I had the car checked at Goodson Acura when I bought it, but I guess I didn't do enough accurate research about snap ring issues before I bought it. Should the dealer have questioned that when they checked out the car? Well it's too late, I bit the BIG bullet and put a whole new transmission in through MacChurchill Acura. It's done, it's over, the car is great. But you really don't want to know how much that cost. You made out a lot better than I did. Acura helped a little, but as others have said, really no luck on the goodwill repair. Third owner, ten years old. Just appreciate it when you get it back when it's been in the shop for 3 weeks waiting for a transmission. I wish I would have been following this NSX site back then. You can sure learn a lot here.

 

[nsxtasy]

When a car is checked, you can see whether the transmission is in the snap ring range, but there's no way to tell whether the snap ring is going to fail or not. Once it does start to exhibit symptoms, as long as you follow Mark Basch's advice here and stop driving it, it's a relatively inexpensive repair. There's no need to replace the entire transmission unless you continue to drive on it after the snap ring fails.