More dealership b/s?
 

So in a spin-off to the previous thread, the transmission is finally coming in today or tomorrow according to MazdaUSA, which is great, so I phoned dealership to double check with them..

They're saying to change the transmission it's going to take 2 to 3 consecutive days of working on my car with 2 or 3 guys.

Now I've never really looked at the mechanics of my 8 (I only had it 3 weeks) so I don't know how complicated it is, but I do know that a friend and I changed his Pontiac GTO's transmission in 6 hours without a lift (we used the curb).

MazdaUSA said it shouldn't take more then a day (unless they have a lot of cars to service).

So how long does it take to change out the tranny?


Slowly getting sick and tired of this dealership bullshit..

friend took his out in one day in his drive way. if they are replacing it, it shouldnt take long but if they are taking it apart like the dealer here does it may take a bit.

Welcome to Mazda!

mazda has stopped replacing transmission, and has started rebuilding them. at least thats what the dealer in my area does. a complete transmission overhaul would take longer than a few hours.

In a dealership with a car lift and air tools, the transmission can be pulled off the car in less than 10 minutes. The reinstall will take slightly longer. The only trick is to line up the transmission so it slides back into the clutch area at the correct angle.

i have a tranny shop which i trust explicitly near my house. I've not taken my 8 there for anything (hope never have to) but my previous car i took there to have the clutch and flywheel replaced and it took them one full day: drop off 8am monday morning, pick up tuesday afternoon at 5pm. They are exceptional in their work. can't imagine a full tranny swap would be much different than a clutch and FW swap since both require you to drop the tranny.

So i'd probably give the dealship the benefit of the doubt on 2 day turn-around time. Three days seems excessive however, as someone else stated, if they are busy... you could just be stuck from that.

Hey as long as you have a warranty covered rental, heck with it. beat the tin can up while you can.

I take my 8 to Tyrone Square Mazda in St. Pete Florida. It is a 150+ mile round trip but definitely worth it. I have three Mazda dealers that are significantly closer to me, but their service departments were a disgrace.
The number to Tyrone Square Mazda is (727) 344-3344. I do not work there, nor am I affiliated in any way with them.

No rental, I'm not 25.

So 2 days is reasonable?

It's an 09, 700 miles on it, Mazda said no rebuild, tranny swap instead.

Awesome, thanks, I'll be giving them a call, if that's what it takes to get proper service, then so be it.

btw when my car needed a new tranny, the car sat at the mazda dealership for about a full month.

first mazda wanted them to rebuild it. they needed to get approval for all of this.

then once they pulled it out, they looked inside and saw that it would cost more to rebuild than to give me a new one. so they had to go back to mazda, get confirmation and all, then mazda had a guy come out and inspect the car before they ordered a new transmission.

once they had the new tranny, it was installed the same day. Getting to that point thought wasn't quick.

you talking about without the ppf and shaft and stuff ? LOL

Cuz I wanna see you take the tranny down in 10 minutes ... with all the shaft and bolts and stuff still on :(




Oh for darklord's question. NO it SHOULD NOT take more than 1 day.

if I have access to a lift and air tools. i can probably take it down with 1-2 hours (taking my time)

and they're replacing your tranny with a new one, no rebuild = no downtime. so it should not take more than 1 day. but oh well, if thats what they say, let them. get ur car back 2 days later.

Try going to a different dealer...

it probably cost them less if they just approve it right away.

I wish, but right now it's in their hands :(

Ok so they're feeding me b/s again :eyetwitch

It's already been nearly a month, I need the car for this weekend to drive somewhere :(

yeah some dealerships are STUPID! i went to HB mazda here in SOCAL, they try to charge me for a rotation when all i needed was my wheel lock loosened....

Not to toot our own horn but if you had us do it at our shop...we could remove and replace it in about 30 mins!

Hell, we even did a motor/tranny swap this past weekend at VIR in 1hr 35mins!!!

nothing like a little race team speed!

yea well I did a motor/tranny swap in 30 sec on forza 2. I didnt ever get dirty!

Would love to, but it's a bit far :p:

it took them a month to replace mine, had it replaced in 2006.

Well, after filling a complaint with the BBB and losing my temper, I called MazdaUSA again, and you'll never believe what the dealership did 1 hour after I hung up with Mazda...


They said my car will be ready tomorrow at noon.

How bout that. Buncha asswipes they are.

I'm going to find a new dealership once I get my car back and after inspecting it very thoroughly

it shouldnt take em any longer than 6 hours especially with a lift and airtools.this morning i got my tranny replaced and also my clutch pedal bracket and it only took mazda about 3 and a half hours

DarkLord, did anyone (ie Mazda corporate or the stealership itself) give you any explanation as to the cause of the failure?

I've been lurking around on this forum for about a month doing research, and was excited to read about the improvements made to the '09, transmission included. I was disappointed to read that you had a problem with yours so soon with so few miles, hopefully it was an isolated incident...

Syncros 3 and 6 were factory defective and barely worked. They replaced the transmission, it's all fixed now, runs great.

The management tried to blame it on me, but a head engineer from Mazda checked out my car and confirmed it was factory defective.

Transmission is smooth as butter now :)

I just swapped my transmission in about 3 hours one night last week, not working quickly, using only jackstands, hand tools, and body-pressing that bitch back up into the car. It's not a bad job at all even without a lift or trans jack. That counted swapping the clutch, too, because I remembered I had an rx-7 ACT laying around so I threw it in. And I had to swap a couple of sensors over from the old trans to the new one.