Say guys I need some advice. After almost 14 years and lots & lots of careful miles I have to replace the clutch in my 91SE.

The local dealer advises me that the "clutch pack kit" costs $189.00 then $600.00 in labor + tax & the usual bs. When I questioned the service manager about the fairly large labor cost he replied that the clutch is very had to get at in this car.

Is this true for just my generation of Max or of the car in general? And what is this vnusual difficulty?

Thanks for your advice.

Peabody

 

they are probably charging you 7.5 hours of labor@ $80 dollars an hour that the going labor rate for dealer service dept. may want to try independant mechnics on this one.

 

They charge you a standard price, based on an hourly rate, for each repair. If the book tells them 7.5 hours to change the clutch, and their rate is $80, then they charge you $600, no matter how long the job actually ends up taking.

Anyway, you have to remove the transmission from the car to change the clutch. This is a fairly labor intensive process.

Get a few quotes from independent shops. I would think anything under $400 would be a fair price on the labor.

EDIT: That $189 clutch kit is a "Key Value" kit. It is NOT the same as OEM and is inferior. You want OEM and OEM ONLY. It is worth the price, by far, over Key Value.

 

It only takes me 45 minutes to pull the tranny out of this car, and slightly over an hour to put it back in and fill with fluid. take it somewhere else...

I'm not sure how far you are from Jeff92SE, but he's in WA and knows 3rd gens just as well as I do. might try PMing him and see if he's interested in making a few bucks.

 

I wish there were places where you rent out a shop or something with a lift and a set of air tools, cause $600 for labour is crazy! all the have to do is unbolt the tranny take out the old clutch, surface the flywheel (hopefully that is included), then align up the new clutch TO bearing, torque to spec and done, I dont think it takes them that long, but they charge an arm and a leg because they have to pull the tranny out and so they charge as much as they can.

does anyone know if they bleed the clutch when doing a new clutch install?

 

"all they have to do is unbolt the tranny"

Umm, that's no minor job. it's not like it takes 5 minutes to do... getting to it takes almost an hour, THEN you have to unbolt and remove the tranny- which is another small project in itself, even with a tranny jack.


bleed the clutch? sometimes. if it needs it they will. if the put the new clutch in and it works, they don't mess with it.

 

I have access to just such a facility

 

EDIT: That $189 clutch kit is a "Key Value" kit. It is NOT the same as OEM and is inferior. You want OEM and OEM ONLY. It is worth the price, by far, over Key Value.[/QUOTE]

Holy Sh*t ***** you're absolutely right!! I just called the dealer back & the parts man admitted that the quote he gave me was for "key vlaue" parts. The OEM parts are $304.00.

Thank you very much!! I intend to put at least another 100,000 miles on this car as it's in beautiful condition. I'll pay the extra $100 for the top quality parts.

Thank you again for your advice.

Peabody

 

whoever said the tranny takes 45 minutes to pull is a - I have pulled my tranny twice, the first time I ran into all sorts of problems with bolts breaking and a little trouble with the axlenet and pulling the halfshafts - to make this quick, i dont think even a team of profesional mechanics with airtools could do it in under 45 minutes.

 

Buy the OEM clutch from JRnissan or some other discount nissan dealership and try an independent shop or someone who you trust and knows how to do it.

 

Um I think you are the tard Chris. Matt93se has probably removed/installed a 3-gen 5-sp at least 8-10 times now. If not his own but other clients. I could NOT do it in 45min. But he probably could. If I had all my tools laid out and the car on the jack already, I could probably do it in 45min if I rushed it. But I already know where all the bolts go etc.. But if I did a client's car, I'd take alot longer, label bolts, inspect other stuff at the same time etc....