Throwout bearing disintegrated. Need advice please...

First off, my 2005 LGT non-limited, 5-speed is in the shop.

Long story short, car died over the weekend on the way home. Transmission grinding in neutral, won't go in gear. Towed it to a local shop. Turned out the throwout bearing disintegrated, and sheared a big chunk of the transmission housing with it (where the bearing was mounted). Pieces of aluminum everywhere. Not a pretty sight...

So, the shop said, since the transmission housing is a single-piece design, replacing the whole tranny would make more sense than getting a casing and repacking all the gears into the new casing. They quoted me $3600 (!!) for a new manual transmission, plus a new clutch kit and labor, estimate $5500 - 6000 (!!!). They suggest an alternative, is to get a used transmission and save $1900 off the cost.

I have to get it fixed, and I am leaning towards the lower cost option. My car has 84k miles on it, and I don't think it's worth spending $6k to get it running again. Just hope that the new-used transmission has not been abused in its previous life.

So, here are a couple of questions:

1. The shop has never seen such a catastrophic failure on a throwout bearing. Has anyone experienced something like this? I have always babied my car. Never modded in anyway, never raced or abused. The clutch is still good at 84k miles, which says a I lot on how I drive it (I guess?).

2. Is the price quoted by the shop reasonable?

Thanks in advance for your comments.

The price quoted is unreasonable to me. A new clutch kit is about $900 (you can get it off fred beans) and that includes a 2007+ single mass flywheel and clutch. There is almost no additional labor since they are installing the new trans anyway.

If you love the car, you can probably spend $6k total and install a 6-speed transmission - considered a damn good upgrade by many. That includes a whole lot of new associated parts like half shafts, differentials, trans, etc.....so that should give you an idea of what $6k should buy you.

My recommendation is to find a new shop if you can.

That is one of the worst TOBs I've seen - I would be amazed if it did that without making any noise beforehand.

I've had 2 of them look worse than the OPs pics. Luckly my snout wasn't as bad and could salvage it by using the Tranquil TSK3 Sleeve Kit, which most of us have started using to protect the snout and housing.

RandyMax - Don't know if your snout is fixable. Maybe take it to a machine shop and see it they could weld it back on and use the Tranquil TSK3 Sleeve Kit to protect it even more. Just an option.

If your flywheel is in good shape then there's no need for a new one, unless you see a lot of burnt areas on it. Most online auto part stores sell the OEM pressure plate and disc for much less than the dealers. Sach is the OEM brand and Rockauto seems to be the best price, but look around first.

The gearbox looks fixable without replacement, it's not leaking oil.

And flywheel - well, you can do well without resurfacing or replacing it if it looks good and you haven't had any glazed clutch.

Getting a new gearbox may require you to get a new rear diff at the same time if you can't get a gearbox with the same ratio as you have. But a 6 speed is tempting. Find yourself a STi gearbox and rear diff and you certainly have an upgrade.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions.

I wish I would have done my research and ask for advice before I tow my car to a shop. Looks like there are better options out there than going with the shop's suggestion to replace the transmission.

From what I hear from fellow board members so far, going ahead with the job using the same shop may not be the smartest thing to do. However given that the shop has already opened everything up, packing it back together and towing the car to another shop will also cost me both time and money. So, I think I am going to take it in the rear this time and go ahead with the repair. Consider it an expensive lesson learned.

Thanks again for all of you who commented.

Just an idea.

http://legacygt.com/forums/showthread.php/tw-6-speed-swap-complete-lgt-4500-162208.html

Same tragedy occurred in my 05 my OBXT (160K miles). Before this happened though, was hearing a loud "whirring" that correlated with acceleration/deceleration when clutch was NOT engaged (very obvious when foot was taken off accelerator and car was allowed to coast in gear), and noise disappeared completely when clutch was fully engaged. Local Subie shop, however, said that noise was due to worn pinion bearing, nothing mentioned of throwout bearing. Was quoted roughly $3500 to "fix" current tranny or around $3000 to just replace entire tranny with "new" used, lower mileage tranny.

Before throwout bearing threw itself out, was already planning method of attack to replace the transmission, going either the 6sp STi route (MUCH more expensive btw, after all the right housings and compatible components are purchased) OR finding same replacement tranny, but one compatible with a 4.11 rear diff gear ratio to improve overall fuel efficiency and economy. Then clutch went out one night driving home.... Had sudden difficulty going into gear, then loud grinding and eventually lots of smoke and inability to go into any gear. Fast forward to tranny and clutch removed and find the throwout bearing completely melted and disintegrated. So it begs the question, was the original issue really the pinion or the throwout bearing? If not the pinion then why was that what the shop had quoted as being the issue?

Regardless, after MANY hours of research on the decision to go either STi or remain 5sp with a lower rear diff gear ratio, decided to go with the latter. Based simply on the fact that my end goal was improved fuel economy and not the ability to go from 0-60 a few milliseconds faster. The decision has probably saved me well over $2500 or more; a "new" used STi tranny and housing would have set me back almost $3000 alone, not to mention any additional compatibility issues that would have arisen and the need to likely swap out suspension and other systems in order to handle the increased power demand this tranny would have required. By searching for a 4.11 gear ratio rear diff ($120) and corresponding tranny, which came with a perfectly good clutch plate and flywheel assembly ($800) I have saved myself an appreciable amount of financial - and time - investment. Not to mention the continued savings with less fill-ups at the pump due to the improved fuel economy.

Just wanted to show you the other options out there if you don't necessarily "need" to upgrade your entire vehicle to a race-ready STi version of itself.

Same tragedy occurred in my 05 my OBXT (160K miles). Before this happened though, was hearing a loud "whirring" that correlated with acceleration/deceleration when clutch was NOT engaged (very obvious when foot was taken off accelerator and car was allowed to coast in gear), and noise disappeared completely when clutch was fully engaged.

 

Local Subie shop, however, said that noise was due to worn pinion bearing, nothing mentioned of throwout bearing. Was quoted roughly $3500 to "fix" current tranny or around $3000 to just replace entire tranny with "new" used, lower mileage tranny.

 

 

Before throwout bearing threw itself out, was already planning method of attack to replace the transmission, going either the 6sp STi route (MUCH more expensive btw, after all the right housings and compatible components are purchased) OR finding same replacement tranny, but one compatible with a 4.11 rear diff gear ratio to improve overall fuel efficiency and economy.

 

 

Then clutch went out one night driving home.... Had sudden difficulty going into gear, then loud grinding and eventually lots of smoke and inability to go into any gear. Fast forward to tranny and clutch removed and find the throwout bearing completely melted and disintegrated. So it begs the question, was the original issue really the pinion or the throwout bearing? If not the pinion then why was that what the shop had quoted as being the issue?

 

 

 

Regardless, after MANY hours of research on the decision to go either STi or remain 5sp with a lower rear diff gear ratio, decided to go with the latter. Based simply on the fact that my end goal was improved fuel economy and not the ability to go from 0-60 a few milliseconds faster.

 

The decision has probably saved me well over $2500 or more; a "new" used STi tranny and housing would have set me back almost $3000 alone, not to mention any additional compatibility issues that would have arisen and the need to likely swap out suspension and other systems in order to handle the increased power demand this tranny would have required. By searching for a 4.11 gear ratio rear diff ($120) and corresponding tranny, which came with a perfectly good clutch plate and flywheel assembly ($800) I have saved myself an appreciable amount of financial - and time - investment. Not to mention the continued savings with less fill-ups at the pump due to the improved fuel economy.

 

Just wanted to show you the other options out there if you don't necessarily "need" to upgrade your entire vehicle to a race-ready STi version of itself.

I can't speak for why the shop said pinion bearing. However, a whirring sound that changes when you push/release the clutch pedal is the classic symptom of the TOB, from what I understand. My car was whirring/squealing pretty bad at idle the first time I had to replace my TOB.

My guess is that the acceleration/deceleration correlation is why the shop might have said pinion bearing, but I'm interested to know what others have to say. Regardless, if the shop is familiar with manual transmission Subarus, I think they should have known TOB was a possibility, unless they wanted more $$.

Any Subaru shop claiming the noise is a pinion bearing has never seen a Subaru 5MT.

Beware.

If you buy that line, I have some muffler bearings and headlamp fluid to sell you. Maybe a bridge too.

Any Subaru shop claiming the noise is a pinion bearing has never seen a Subaru 5MT.

 

Beware.

 

If you buy that line, I have some muffler bearings and headlamp fluid to sell you. Maybe a bridge too.

:lol: I could use some new muffler bearings!

I actually just finished doing my TOB this weekend thought I've been plugging away at it for around a week.

I went with a TSK3 kit. I replaced my TOB about 80k ago when I did my clutch. This was not OEM but it worked fine until one day 2 weeks ago. On my way home my clutch got VERY notchy. I know what it was right away. To my surprise, the snout was in great condition. The TOB however, could not be turned my hand. I cleaned it up and got it to turn. I'm going to post a video in my build thread so everyone can see how bad it was. Very glad I stopped driving it.

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