Good news everybody!

I managed to find a used transmission from Autoparts Partsword in Timaru (Long way away haha) for $650 plus $95 shipping. The new tranny comes from a 96 Windom MCV20, and has about 140,000km on the clock, a lot better than the 280,000km tranny I found earlier. I've been quoted approximately another $500 for installation, and all together I should be getting a bill around the $1100-1200 mark for the complete job. The donor car seems to be in decent condition, however unfortunately (or fortunately for me) it was involved in a minor fender bender that the insurance company then considered to be a write off.

The new tranny comes with a 90 day parts warranty, which I guess is good enough (beggars can't be choosers), on the condition that I have an external transmission cooler installed, which should add another $80-120 to the grand total. Not too much of an issue as I hear external transmission coolers work wonders for the life and long term condition of the transmission, which honestly gets me asking "Why don't all cars come with these things?", seems like a fairly inexpensive way to prevent costly breakdowns.

Anyway, if all goes to plan, my car should be back home this time next week and I'll keep you guys updated along the way. Hopefully once the broken tranny gets taken out we'll be able to diagnose exactly what went wrong and figure out how to prevent this happening again.


Oh and ES300NZ. The 01a, 03a etc were just axle numbers.

 

that's good news, and the price is in the right region (both of them).

The ES300 has an external transmission cooler which is in the radiator, most automatic cars do have them, they work perfectly fine. But an aftermarket one would only be a benefit. It's not actually necessary.