Reman tranny on 2000 Explorer

Maintenance/Repairs
, ,
1

My 2000 Explorer with 49,000 miles needs a tranny at a cost of $3700 for Motorcraft reman with a 3 year unlimited mileage nationwide warranty. Some additional repairs, a new set of tires and alignment (which I already knew about) bring the total to $5500. This vehicle is gently driven, mostly highway miles, well-maintained and never needed any major repairs until now. The mechanic says the rest of the car looks in good shape and should last "quite a while", but I take that with a grain of salt as they are looking at losing a nice repair sale if I decide not to have the work done and get rid of the vehicle.

My question is, is it worth sinking $5500 into an 11 year old vehicle with low mileage? Being that almost all components of this vehicle are 11 years old (almost 12) what are the odds they will start to fail as well? Does age play as major a factor as miles?

2

If this vehicle was “well maintained,” why does it need a new transmission?

3

I also question that. I have a 2000 Ford Explorer with 216,000 miles on it, original transmission. It gets a transmission fluid change every 30,000. Besides a bad belt tensioner replaced under warranty, it’s been a solid truck.

4

Ditto…and even if you’ve ignored it completely, it should still not be having problems so major it needs to be replaced at only 49K miles. How did you determine that the tranny is dead?

5

I am also curious as to why this vehicle needs the transmission replaced. Highly unusual for such a low mileage Explorer of this vintage to need a transmission unless something bad happened to it, such as vicious abuse, neglect, vehicle involved in a flood, etc. Do you have a four speed or five speed automatic?