After countless flushes at a friends shop using a machine, my transmission had been shifting great and running fine for roughly the past 3 months. Last night I started hearing a whirling sound under dash and shifter, and knew it was my tranny. Drove it tonight and noise was there again, but would go away when I pushed the O/D off button. 2 or 3 times to test this and all hell broke loose. I now have no movement in any gear and only recieve the standard weird go nowhere noise you all might be familiar with if you;ve ever had a tranny go out So what am I looking at in rebuild/or used tranny prices from an average shop? Any tips or help would be greatly appreciated. This officially sucks. A $60.00 tranny cooler could have saved me thousands if only I had known when I first bought my T4R. Hopefully these stories can help someone in the future. Don't let this happen to you!!

I would get a low mileage (like 60K) donor tranny for around $650-900 at a pick-a-part or online. I would guess the labor would be about $700-800 at an average shop. I found a shop that would find the trans, install and warranty it for a year for $1500 OTD. I ended up doing a DIY flush on mine and it's been good for a year and a half now.

Yeah, I guess it's just the luck of the draw whether or not it survives after the pink milkshake ordeal. I did think I would get by with all that flushing I had done, especially using the machine to rid the torque converter as well. This officially sucks, nad I am having it towed to our local shop today and will report back on monday. Anyone else replaced or rebuilt as of late?

As suggested, the cheaper route is to get a donor. I got one with 78K installed a few months ago. $600 for the tranny with a 1 year parts/labor warranty, and another $600 to have it installed (including new filter, fluid and a new seal).

Rebuild will probably be upwards of $2k.

A donor sounds fine, although I just don't know how much faith I want to put into a tranny with 60-100K miles on it regardless. I know you can find them with warranty's but they are usually at most up to a year. That is around 12-15K miles and then if something goes wrong you are right back where you started. Atleast with a rebuild I can get a long life warranty and feel confident I'm not going to have to go through it again. I don't know of any shops that will let you just bring in a donor for them to put in. Is this a standard thing or do you usually just have to ask around?

Just to clarify, when I flushed mine it was because it was just shifting harsh, but no pink milkshake. Most of the time (but not always) pink milkshake is a death sentence for your tranny. The way I figure it is yes, you would be taking more of a risk with a used tranny, but then again every part on your truck is used, so you're taking a risk with everything (and rebuilt trannies aren't bulletproof either).

You could get 2 or 3 donor trannies installed for the price of one rebuild so it would be worth the risk IMO. Even if you had to do it twice, you'd be at or still below the rebuild price, so why not try to save the $$? Most likely if the donor tranny was bad, you'd notice something in the 1st year and get it redone for free anyways. Just my $.02. Good luck, tranny problems aren't very fun.

convert to a manual... then no worries with the tranny!

This is an old thread, but it's still useful some 12 years later. I thought I'd update on the pricing I'm seeing these days as I am going through the same decisions.

2000 4x4 3.4 Limited, 280K

For a used or remanned install, it looks like the labor has not gone up much in the past 12 years. Shops around me are still quoting around $600 labor, plus tax, and sometimes plus ATF and parts.

Cost of rebuilding the trans seems to vary significantly based on shop. Cheapest I found for a rebuild + labor was around $2,600, plus tax. Highest I found was $4,000 (yes, for a rebuild, not remanned). Longest warranty I've found was 18 months/18K miles parts/labor. Shortest, 1 year/ 10K miles.

A used trans is the easiest pill to swallow, but a gamble. Qyota got pretty lucky and got his warrantied:

Quote:

"As suggested, the cheaper route is to get a donor. I got one with 78K installed a few months ago. $600 for the tranny with a 1 year parts/labor warranty, and another $600 to have it installed (including new filter, fluid and a new seal)."

Pulling the donor trans seems like a big job. If you could pull it, you could probably install it. If you ordered one that's already pulled, you won't know whether it was pulled because of the pink milkshake. A warranty is mandatory.

4runners are not common here, and we don't find them sitting around at junkyards with low miles and good transmissions.

As far as remanufactured. Right now McGeorge Toyota is selling remanufactured transmissions for $2,370. That is for local pickup only, + $1,000 core charge, + tax. You might be able to sweet talk a dealer near you into getting near it. They probably will not match it. With the cheapest labor I was quoted, we're talking out the door price $3,500 for a remanufactured transmission and install. I paid $4,000 for the 4runner.

If your 4runner is low miles, and you can DIY, and borrow a friend from time to time, and had a nice comfortable garage to work in, I'd go with a remanufactured trans. In my case, pushing 280K, I'm going to end up selling it. Other things will start to go bad over time. Head gasket to name one.

Going through the same as well. Dreaded P0770. Took it to a dealer who told me that new, reman, were unavailable. Took it to Aamco who said the same and can't find any used either. Rebuild starts at $4k from them.

Repair depends on how long you plan to keep it:

Try ebay: There are seller who offer 6 month warranty: Try google and there is a shop on North East rebuilding trans: You ship yours back to them.

I recently rebuilt my 2000 Land Cruiser transmission at Mr. Transmission in San Antonio TX, and they did an awesome job. After the rebuild, the vehicle pulls like a sport car! My complete rebuilt was $3880 out the door.

AAMCO lied to you about a lack of used 3rd gen ATs.

Car-Part.com--Used Auto Parts Market

-Charlie

I just got a used transmission that was listed from car-part.com for $575 with 137K miles. Don't be afraid to call the ones that say "call for price" as some are much cheaper than the ones listing a price. The hard part is that most used transmissions have over 200K miles or list generic mileage like "100,000" miles that are obviously false. All in all with having to buy a transmission jack and repair some seals and odds and ends it cost me $1200 to replace the transmission myself.

Be willing to drive to get what you need.

Where did you get your work done in san antonio? Is your vehicle still holding up?