buyer beware

[gotmudd]

well i just got the transmission put in my truck today and boy what a pain in the a$$, not to mention a few other body parts. i must warn you people out there though, that if you find yourself in the situation that i was in and you have to get a boneyard tranny, to do two things. first find out if the wrecking yard you are going to has a web site, if they do find the listing of what you are looking for and get an online price{ what they advertise and what they tell you in person is sometimes different} as they may try to up the list price. case in point, the place i went to had an online price of $175, when i got there he tried to tell me $250, until i called him on his online price. second find out if there is a warranty on the part in question{most times there is, like 90 days, varies yard to yard, and most people don't think to ask and get screwed}and in the case of automatic tranny's check the fluid, even though it is recommended to change it anyway, and if it has been drained see if you can pull the pan{it only takes five seconds} and look at the internals. long story short i didn't check mine out, just took the guy's word and came up with a water logged, rusted piece of crap. spent an hour going out to get it and drive back just to have to make the trip all over. that would of been an hour i could have been doing something else. the good news, thank god for 90 day warrantiesand now the old beast is back in motion

 

[Mark_88]

There are many things to watch out for and the warranty is the first thing...I've been dealing with the same yard for a long time and they've always been fair with me...almost every part I've put into my trucks over the years has come from one yard...when you don't deal with them that often is when you really learn their 'policies' and have to be careful...

Good to hear they replaced it for you though...

 

[snake]

I feel your pain. I ordered an auto tranny for a '01 mazda I was working on from a yard in arkansas that supposedly had 25K on it. The damn thing shows up, looks like it had been through hurricane katrina- twice. The axle holes in the transaxle were full of grit- thick grit. I called this cat and told him this thing was unusable. I get the VIN # from the car it came out of and ran a carfax. The car was repossed in 2003 when it had 64K on it, and then was registered in 03,04,05, AND '06 before it got wrecked... 25K my ass, more like 125K at least...

Finally got one from KY with 46K verifiable and that one looked good and ran perfect. I hate a bunch of damn liars...

 

[gotmudd]

great responses guy's, i hope that it is informative to the rest of you out there as well. i'm getting to know my yards pretty good too around here where i am at.