so I had my car towed to the dealer (I trust them more than any of the shops around here) thinking I had a hydrolic failure in my clutch (didn't actually get to check the reservoir under the hood though).

They got a look at the car, and it turns out they think the fork for the clutch is bent (which I think he said might explain why the slave cylinder bent, if it was jammed and I stepped on the clutch).

at any rate..they're going to drop the transmission and let me know for sure what the problem is.

my question is since the car's got almost 150,000 on it, is it worth having any work done inside the transmission while its removed from the car? or should I just abide by the "if it aint broke don't fix it" rule?

 

The tranny should be fine, was it shifting okay? Bending a shift fork is not common on most vehicles, as it is typically a 2-3" cast peice. It sounds more as if you dropped a spring on your clutch, or you had a throw out bearing failure to me. But it's hard to tell without actuall feeling and listening.

 

tranny should be fine, but get a new clutch put in

 

they're putting a new clutch in. I had just installed an aftermarket clutch a couple years ago when the original was going..but he said it looked pretty burnt up. shifting's always been fine, and he didn't express any concerns about the tranny so I'm not going to touch it.

they said it looked like the pivot point for the shift fork failed first...and will probably be around $1100 for the job. I asked him to keep the parts though so I can see what happened.

 

$1100 for a clutch job and to replace a clutch fork and pivot holy christ! Dude it is like a 3 hour job without air tools, an hour and a half with air tools. You are getting bent over hard... That's what happens when you trust a dealer to work on your car. Back in the day when I knew nothing over four years ago I had my clutch replaced, and my transmission completely rebuilt for $900.

As far as stuff to replace inside the transmission, if you are not having any weird noises from the transmission yet at 150k miles it sounds like your transmission doesn't have the input shaft or differential bearing failure which is fairly common. So don't worry about it. Though, if you did have anything needing replacement in there, I sure as **** wouldn't be having that dealer doing the work. They are completely raping you guy. It's seriously like an hour and a half, maybe two hour job, and probably a maximum of $300 in parts (more likely about $200-250). That means they are charging you for about 9 hours of labor at the typical shop rate of $85/hour.

 

Neal is right. Sounds like highway robbery...

 

Sounds? You mean is. Where are you located?