Is my mother nuts?

[3,503 lbs of trouble]

So today my mother informs me that her T-bird is in the shop (we both have '97 T-birds, except hers is a V8 and mine has a V6). She tells me that she just started having transmission problems, so she took it into the Lincoln/Mercury dealer where her husband last worked (recently laid off from the body shop). She told me they claim there's something wrong with the "torque something", I assume she means torque converter, so they talk her into putting in a whole new transmission to the tune of $2450.00!!

WTF!! The car only has like 70K on it, she maintains it, and is pretty gentle. I told her she's out of her mind to let them go ahead with the work. Last year I trashed my T-bird's tranny out at Firebird playing "race car" (pre Vette), and I had a high performance shop that specializes in racing transmissions (mostly Fords) drop and rebuild my tranny w/ a Transgo shift kit and heavy duty parts that will now allow it to handle 600hp, and it only cost me $1150.00!!

I told her to call the dealer at 7AM when they open Service to see if they have started the work yet, and if not I told her to tell them NO, and go down there and pick it up, and that by noon I'd find a competent shop to rebuild hers for FAR less. She said she had to discuss it with my Stepfather who told her to take it there because transmission shops were not good enough.

Is she nuts or am I missing something?

[knkayotte]

You Ford/Mac guys crack me up. Your suprised the tranny let go at 70k witha t-bird.

:D

Just giving you a hard time

Serious I'm not up on tranny install prices. For comparison sake, we just had a transmission changed out on a 99 dodge ram at work. Completely new tranny installed was $1750 out the door. $2450 does seem a little high. She definitely needs to get estimates from other places.

[3,503 lbs of trouble]

You Ford/Mac guys crack me up.  Your suprised the tranny let go at 70k witha t-bird.

[BSeery]

You Ford/Mac guys crack me up.  Your suprised the tranny let go at 70k witha t-bird.

Well, I have to say the T-bird has been FAR more reliable than my Vette.

[3,503 lbs of trouble]

Hmmm -- the 18 years difference may be some of it as well.