I am in a quandary about whether or not to have a rebuilt transmission put into my Infiniti G20. Its been a great car, no major repairs, just an alternator. But during a cross country trip the transmission went out and it will cost 4K to replace with a rebuilt one. I know the cars value doesn’t support but if the engine would hold up and give me 50,000 more miles it would really be worth it. I am a student and have 1.5 years to go before graduation. How do I find out if the engine is in good shape.
A compression test, a real one done with a pressure gauge, will give a pretty good picture of engine life remaining…Your Datsun, at 108K miles, should easily go 175-200K miles if you keep the maintenance up. Does it use a rubber timing belt that requires periodic replacement?
It has 108,000 miles
I noticed, sorry…
I’m not sure about the belt, its not a Datsun though, its an Infinity G20. I expected more than 108,000 miles for it, but I need it to be reliable. I go to school in St Louis and live in florida.
For 1.5yrs I would try and locate a used(aka junkyard) transmission and do a little gamble. I think you will win if it works out of the starting gate(when installed).
I would not spend $4k for 1.5yrs, your car is past its average life despite low miles.
I found through the internet a mechanic who said he had an Infiniti transmission from a car that had been totaled, that only had 30K miles on it. I question this because they quit making my model shortly after I purchased mine so how could it be so low mileage. He said it belonged to a “old lady” who didn’t drive much and fell asleep at the wheel. This seems to implausible for me, the circumstances and he wanted $2800 to do all required. Tough decision, but I think you may be right about the 4K.
Caddyman is actually correct, although he is using a bit of jest regarding the brand name of the car.
Here is some reality regarding the car’s provenance:
The Infiniti G20 is actually a Nissan Primera sedan that was gussied-up with a lot of standard equipment in order to be sold as an upscale small car in the US. In the rest of the world, it is just a run-of-the-mill small car called the Nissan Primera. The engine is the same as the one in many Nissan Sentra sedans and Nissan 200SX coupes of that era. Datsun is the brand name that Nissan used to use in the US, so even though Caddyman was engaging in some jest, at their core his comments were correct.
I agree that the engine in this car should be able to give you many more years of service IF it has been maintained properly. Unfortunately, we don’t know the model year of your car or its maintenance history, so we don’t know how much potential life it has left in it. Perhaps you can fill in some missing details for us so that we can better advise you.