Hello, this is Martin in Ohio. My car is a 2000 xk8 coupe with 50,000 miles. It is throwing a code which indicates a bad A drum in the ZF gearbox. My question is:
What is the best estimated cost of replacing the transmission? I am hoping to be as specific as possible because I am court ordered to provide a value for the car as is with a disabled transmission. It really is two questions: what is the value of the car with a bad transmission and what would the repair cost? I know it’s asking a lot but hoping the forum members can respond with some hard data, or best estimates. Thanks very much for all input. By the way, doesn’t appear to be a question that can be answered by the usual sources, i.e., Edmunds, RepairPal as I have tried.
My suggestion is to establish a reasonable price for your car w/o a bad trany, by searching BAT or Wikipedia, and then subtract the estimated cost of an indie shop rebuilding or replacing the trany.
Hi Martin,
Common failure on the early XK8’s pre 2003 as you have already read.
I presently have my 99 XK8 coupe in transmission shop for same fault.
The selection of D would initiate with a jerk/thud.
I have a spare gearbox which I contemplated doing myself w a friend familiar w the swap however after reviewing the service records I have discovered that it was on it’s 3rd used transmission!!
How can this be?
The transmission shop seems to believe that because of a faulty shifter assembly, along w a safety neutral switch, it has not been properly syncing with gear shifts.
This fault eventually self destructs the gearbox. Hence the 3rd one.
Not to mention the already frail A-drum on the iterations of used gearboxes that have been swapped out in mine.
The basic costs to remove and rebuild and re-install will be approx $2k
The costs I have been left with this week because of the faulty shifter assembly and switch raised it up to $3200.
At the present moment, the real world value of an XK8 with a bad transmission with low miles like yours is probably around $1800-2500.
Hope this helps!