Morning, the car broke down on Sunday, towed home and spoke to garage last night (thankfully a local one and a good one) to be told that

the gearbox has a problem but could be a new box

whilst the box is out really should do the clutch and dual mass fly wheel to make sure all is okay.

Bill 2k plus ish as we have just had all the brakes done. new pads, caliper and so on plus service.

So do I suck it and go okay fine do it all, get the gear box done and run it for a while then sell, or ?alternatives?

I do 70 miles a day commute 5 days a week, A road and Motorway and need a reliable car

Car is Seat Altea Tdi FR (170 bhp) and 64,500 miles on clock, FSH. Value 4k tops.

Thoughts welcome

It’s £2k and then you should need very, very little doing for a long while. Plus you know the history of the car. I wouldn’t be forking out any more big bills after this one though.

The alternative has you potentially buying someone else’s mechanical problems.

I’d look into the price of a SH gearbox or a specialist gearbox repairer such as GRGB. But even assuming a new box, I’d still get it repaired – Better the devil you know and all that.

would possibly get done as they suggest but be ‘wary’ – not of them but other stuff cropping up..

TBH we kept chipping away with repairs and bills on our 900S some way after – maybe 2 years after – it should really have been sold on… it was always “just one more service, just one more MOT, just one more repair”.

but that was more like 114k..

Part was the mechanic fixing it was obviously loathe to see it go (for whatever reason); also, I suspect what we should have done was get a phantom MOT done after some of the interim repairs…

My Focus is now 10 years old and on 135k miles.

I’m waiting for the gearbox/clutch/DMF to go as they’re all still original.

If they do I’ll probably get it done and keep the car. As others have said, I know the car and it’s problems. I know I’ve looked after it. If I bought another one at a similar age/mileage to replace it I’d just be buying someone else’s where they’ve decided to

get the gear box done and run it for a while then sell

and something else would always be about to go wrong.

£2k sounds reasonable for a Gearbox, Clutch and Flywheel.

I suppose it depends on your attitude towards ‘value’ you might be able to sell it as/is for more than £2k making it theoretically financially better to sell and buy another, but as others have said you could get more value out of it but repairing it, and maybe sticking another 100k miles on it.

It’s slightly surprising the box is dead at 60k miles – the type of driving you do it pretty easy on gearboxes clutches etc.

Alternatively, find a S/H box, ask the garage to fit it with original clutch and FW and sell it.

Those 170’s put a lot of torque through the box. Have you tried VW/seat to see if you can get any goodwill on the box. That’s not a lot of miles. You might be surprised.

Personally if your Seat has been OK otherwise at 64.5k miles I would get it fixed. It’s a big bill but cars do go wrong and I’ve never seen the logic in buying a new car because the old one’s broken down

Was talking to rocket jr’s mate at the weekend his motor needed £700 MOT repairs so he bought a new car 😕

Thanks…..basically it seems to be a rarity on the seat altea for the gear box to go. Driving wise it was owned by one driver before us at 50k, so 8 years and 50k with fsh is not much.

Traditionally we keep the vars to 100k ish saying that out Golf 1.9 tdi 02 plate is on 124k we bought it at 29k.

Will ask the garage to talk to VW about it though.

i like buying cars where other people have repaired big expensive faults like the gearbox and clutch and then got rid….saves me repairing those sections of the car for a long time.

Was talking to rocket jr’s mate at the weekend his motor needed £700 MOT repairs so he bought a new car

Pah, missus has just told me we should be buying a new £20k car because the car tax would be only £20 a year as opposed to £160 for the current one…