I have an AOD transmission that has been sitting outside uncovered for a while and got some water inside. The transmission guy said that it would be ~$650.00 to do a complete rebuild including the front drum. My question is at $650.00 is there any room for a profit if I were to sell it? Thanks in advance, Chuck sorry I can't change the title and I left off the word "worth".
Sounds like a decent price to me. I used a 1988 Thunder bird, AOD in my Fox body .The AOD took a lot of abuse ,but what a passing gear!! Its still working.
I picked mine up as a core from the junk yard for $100. They had stacks of them. What you put in it might not be the build that someone else wants. There are several tweeks you can do to them depending on horsepower. Micah
$650.00 is for a complete stock rebuild (bands, clutches, and front drum) with a stock converter. I don't want to make a lot, just about $100.00 for transportation cost.
Around here, the cheapest you can get an AOD rebuilt for is $1000, with price ranging much higher than that.... so I would say yes
People aren't very trusting of something that they cannot see internally to verify condition. They also tend to like warranties from builders they can go back to if something goes wrong. If they can't get those things then the prospective buyers will generally always want the price to be lower so the gamble is far less.
If you're serious at all about making some extra cash from rebuilt transmissions?.. why not learn how to do it yourself? They're much like carb's and computers.. once you build just one you'll quickly realize that in the scheme of technically related car things, they are not very hard to rebuild at all. Especially when broken down into individual subsystems. Plus, there aren't many other major parts/components(bodywork included) in an automobile that require such a minimal amount of initial investment to effectively rebuild. Cores are cheap and a model specific rebuild DVD can get you started. There's also a wealth of info around the WWW. Can't understand what the hell this guy's saying much of the time.. but some of the low budget techniques he uses work very well to keep the initial investment down until you're doing high enough volume to warrant specialty tools. Even at that point of investment though.. the tools are still relatively cheap to do many basic non-computer controlled transmissions. The bulk of the work and wear and tear on a body is in the actual R&R of the transmission from the vehicle itself. Takes more money for specialized tools(lifts reduce time and difficulty level) and clock time to do that portion of the task compared to just rebuilding an already loose transmission. An easy extra $500 - $1,000 a month of extra cash just doing a few over the weekends and among other car related services.. I know a few guys that do it very successfully. More work than just wholesaling them as you mentioned above.. but just another thought. oh.. forgot to add. To better circumvent the sales and warranty concern issues(tougher to do when you're new and have no established reference base) listed above.. always have the kits you'll be using for the rebuilds for use an additional sales tool. Also.. having another freshly rebuilt unit which could be partially dismantled(loose pump and lack of snap rings makes it easy) for customer examination purposes isn't a bad idea either. Could also leave the pan loose on the prospective model being sold to allow visual inspection. Easy to tighten the pan bolts up with a clutched drill right before you load it into the customers vehicle. Showing more cards right up front allows lowered guards for much better piece of mind and will increase sales. I've been a salesman most of my life yet I don't easily trust people when it comes to money.. so I try to imagine what would help put ME at ease to increase sales potential. That "no secrets/no greed" strategy works extremely well.
Actually a member was intrested in it and I was going to have it looked at by an expert because I knew nothing about the transmission and I wont sell or trade anything unless I know its condition. The member never got back to me so I thought I would try to help out someone else, but it started to become a cluster so I droped the idea. Thanks,
