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Truck minus Clutch

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casey52199

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? NJ but bought vehicle in NY

I just had a question about buying used cars in NY. My husband and I went to Brooklyn to buy a 2005 Nissan Xterra from TNM Auto Group Inc. We went to test drive the vehicle and my husband felt that the clutch was bad and mentioned it to the dealer. The dealer kept insisting that it was fine. We ended up going back to Brooklyn from Princeton to get the vehicle and on the way home it broke down on 287 and we had to call AAA. The dealer wanted us to have it towed to them and leave it on the sidewalk or the corner and put the key in a box. Well, AAA wanted to charge us $86 for tolls for the driver for the drive up and back, we would have had tolls for our us to follow the tow truck, and it was late. We had just given the dealer all the money we had to buy the truck so we didn't have money to pay for tolls. We had AAA tow the vehicle to our mechanic, since he was still there, and let the dealer know this. The dealer called us the next day and told us to take it to his mechanic and he would pay the $900 to fix it. Well even I know that a clutch alone is about $500 since it is a double clutch and then you have labor on top of that. We were charged $3,072 to have it fixed and we asked the dealer to just pay the $900 at least that he offered to pay his mechanic. We didn't ask for the whole thing. Should he pay the $900 or are we just put out and have to forget about it? The vehicle had 103,235 miles when we bought it.
 


Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? NJ but bought vehicle in NY

I just had a question about buying used cars in NY. My husband and I went to Brooklyn to buy a 2005 Nissan Xterra from TNM Auto Group Inc. We went to test drive the vehicle and my husband felt that the clutch was bad and mentioned it to the dealer. The dealer kept insisting that it was fine. We ended up going back to Brooklyn from Princeton to get the vehicle and on the way home it broke down on 287 and we had to call AAA. The dealer wanted us to have it towed to them and leave it on the sidewalk or the corner and put the key in a box. Well, AAA wanted to charge us $86 for tolls for the driver for the drive up and back, we would have had tolls for our us to follow the tow truck, and it was late. We had just given the dealer all the money we had to buy the truck so we didn't have money to pay for tolls. We had AAA tow the vehicle to our mechanic, since he was still there, and let the dealer know this. The dealer called us the next day and told us to take it to his mechanic and he would pay the $900 to fix it. Well even I know that a clutch alone is about $500 since it is a double clutch and then you have labor on top of that. We were charged $3,072 to have it fixed and we asked the dealer to just pay the $900 at least that he offered to pay his mechanic. We didn't ask for the whole thing. Should he pay the $900 or are we just put out and have to forget about it? The vehicle had 103,235 miles when we bought it.
You needed to allow the dealer the opportunity to fix it.
 

OHRoadwarrior

Senior Member
Are you talking about the clutches in an automatic transmission? A manual transmission has the basic clutch, pressure plate and throw out bearing. It costs a couple hundred for parts. At 105k clutch replacement should be a foregone conclusion. That is when they usually go unless you are heavy on them. I think you were handed a pile of manure if you paid $3k to have a clutch replaced.
 
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casey52199

Junior Member
You needed to allow the dealer the opportunity to fix it.
It wasn't feasible to take it back to the dealer due to the distance and money. We had our mechanic fix it because we could pay in payments because he knew us. The dealer did say he would pay the $900 to his mechanic so I mentioned to him whether he paid his mechanic or ours it is still $900 and not the full amount. He knew the clutch was going before we paid so he had a chance to fix it and didn't. He said he had driven it for about 4 days before we bought it and it was fine. I have AAA and the tow truck driver along with our mechanic that can verify we were stuck on 287 and the clutch was bad. It is a manual and has a double clutch. The clutch was so bad when they took it off that it was purple, that isn't good. We have the parts and everything.
 

OHRoadwarrior

Senior Member
It has a pressure plate, a clutch plate and throw out bearing. The term double clutch comes from Class A and B vehicles with unsynchronized manual transmissions. When you go to shift gears, you push in the clutch, shift out of gear,release, then push back in the clutch to synchronize the shift into the next gear and release it. Your truck has a synchronized gearbox and does not require a double clutch or double clutching unless the synchronizers are screwed up from the last owner. My wife used to laugh at me when I would be tired and double clutched my work car.
 

justalayman

Senior Member
Nissan has a dual or twin clutch traansmissikn and the have a dual mass flywheel transmission as well. From what I found the dual mass flywheel transmission is what is used in the exterra.

I have also found it is notorious for failing prematurely. Saw a couple threads on forums talking about this and the prices being tossed around were around$2k but the threads were a few years old.
 

OHRoadwarrior

Senior Member
That is a spring loaded shock absorbing flywheel, not a second clutch. Add about $350 so we are at about $600 in parts.
 
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justalayman

Senior Member
That is a spring loaded shock absorbing flywheel, not a second clutch. Add about $350 so we are at about $600 in parts.
They call it what they call it and so far I have seen it called a dual mass flywheel. It doesn't take much for the non-automotive minded person to end up with double clutch out of that.

Regardless, I suspect your parts price is a tad low. As I said, prices being tossed around on automotive forums was a $2k repair several years ago.

Regardless, if there was no warranty on the vehicle I think they are SOL, especially given they knew the clutch was having problems at the time of purchase. That is where you either negotiate price based on the defect, require it be repaired before the purchase, or require some sort of warranty.
 

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