Mike, I'm very curious how this turns out for you with the Clutch & FW plans. It's something that's been on my mind for many years. Lightweight FW more so than the clutch.

If my CSC ever failed (again), I'd be doing the same thing as you. By that I mean, looking at dropping the transmission as an opportunity to upgrade beyond the slave cylinder.

 

Wait, what? I've read that sentence a few times now, and it still doesn't makes any sense. Is this some kind of riddle? I'm so confused.

 

Pretty sure that's up-thread somewhere. Had one, didn't like it, reinstalled oem shift lever. Caused severe cramp/RSI pain in my right arm, and didn't like the hunt for reverse. I fixed the reverse issue by making my own gate for it, but the RSI didn't go away. I'm a top-down fingertip shifter, so that has something to do with it I'm sure, and the shift ball I use sits about 2" lower than the stock one, the throw is shorter already.

As for the flywheel - if I hadn't had one on a few cars before, I would be leery of it. But I had ACT 11 pound superlights (vs OEM 29/34 pounders) on two different turbo RX7s, one stockish and one heavily modded, and no drive-ability issues. It is one of those free-power things - you're not exactly getting MORE power, but more to the WHEELS. RX7s use a solid flywheel with a sprung hub full-face organic disk, and little or no chatter. None that I can recall, anyway.

Given my hearing loss and the FI exhaust, not sure a little driveline chatter is going to be noticeable if it isn't hurting anything.

 

That really sucks about the CMAK, I've seen several of the HD CSC fail.

 

Let's just say the price for labor for the CMAK that I was quoted was more than R&Ring the transmission again. It was quoted basically as "Go-Away" pricing.

If there was a Z or Nissan-specific (or hell, an import racing shop) near me I'd reconsider. But I'm rolling the dice on the HD. They're better weighted dice rolls than on the OEM, which did last over 50K miles.

 

Zspeed Hd CSC coming from concept Z. (They had stock). Zspeed Stage 2 quiet clutch and flywheel kit, OEM master cyl, fluids and hardware from zspeed. Have stainless braided line already. With labor, a tiny bit less than $3k. all parts should be here by Friday.

Now to get it to the shop by Monday.

 

All parts arriving tomorrow - Joe at ZSpeed upgraded me to Fedex without charging me. Scheduled tow Friday to the Nissan dealer, which had the most reasonable price and timeline, and didn't want to upcharge substantially for bringing my own parts.

 

Not shown: HD CSC, insulated soft line, fluids and hardware.

 

SO my 1400 labor quote just got inflated to 2200 because "they have to take the ABS booster out to replace the clutch master". I know it's tight in there, but there's a way to get it out (remove stud and don't put reservoir on until in the car) that doesn't involve 7 hours of labor.

Master Cyl was part of the quoted hours for the initial estimate, not sure why they decided to bill me for another day's wortk. So this Nissan dealer just lost a customer forever... God I miss having access to a lift. This is why I don't like other people working on my cars - they are, by and large, incompetent, and the places they work for are greedy and dishonest as a business practice.

I considered telling them to stop work there, I'll be over to tow the car somewhere else. But as I found out when calling around, my only other option locally apparently is the Infiniti dealer which is owned by the same group. None of the nicer-marque shops would touch it, and the import places said no aftermarket parts.

What the actual F.

 

You're not wrong to feel this way given the cards you were dealt. However, money shenanigans from the Service Department at a dealership doesn't mean the technician working on your car is any more or less skilled. Have you talked with the tech who's doing the work?

At this point your best course is to step back and be grateful that you have the financial means to absorb an unexpected (and unfair) blow to your wallet. $800 outside of budget is something that could bury a lot of people. You'll survive this, with a lesson learned on who not to do business with in the future. Of course it sucks, but keep your eyes on the prize... clutch, flywheel, csc upgrade. The mods are very exciting, so focus on that and get to the end of it.

 

You're right, at this time we can absorb the extra cost without it impacting anything but savings. To be fair, the FSM has you remove the ABS booster too - that's not my issue. My issue is that they quoted removing and replacing the master cylinder based on the FSM, but didn't account for the time to do all the steps, and are charging me for their mistake. Also, if you spend 30 seconds googling you'd find that there are several ways to avoid removing the ABS booster (remove studs from master and reservoir before removing from car).

They do not allow you to talk directly to the techs (most shops down here that aren't owned by the head mechanic are that way). I asked for pictures of the oil gallery gasket areas while the trans and flywheel were out and those have to go from tech to service writer to me through a dealership-owned phone - none of which I knew until today.

The last time I had a transmission problem - the RX8 throwout bearing seized and bent the trans input shaft, shattering the clutch and PP while I was doing about 60 - I replaced the entire car for what I'm now paying just in labor.

It's also not lost on me that for $2200, I could get a lift of my own, albeit the timeline for that would not get me back driving this month.

I'm trying to let go of it, but... that's not part of my skillset.

 

That would be a hell-no, hard stop for me, not being able to discuss the work with the person actually doing the work.

Pick your battles, Mike. I've had to "let go" of two scammed (or incompetent) service situations in the last half year, but together it was only half of you're additional charges. And by "let go", I mean I'm forcing myself not to do anything about it. Doesn't mean I don't think about it, though.

Good luck. You'll be OK.

 

Ive been told by a friend (who IS an ASE master mechanic, and used to work at the Infiniti / Cadillac dealership service department, and is the reason that I WON'T go to the Inifiniti dealer) that this is common practice nowadays, since the mechanics are generally idiots and it's seen as a liability issue for them to talk to customers.

He left several dealerships and private garages because of his ethics issues - he has them, apparently that's a problem for everyone else. He and I were both military vehicle mechanics (tanks for him, aircraft for me) and we got trained to a... higher set of expectations, I guess.

I'm going to get a cappuccino before Court and see if that fixes my problem.

 

Highway robbery. I feel lucky being in an area where there are a handful of independent shops that are knowledgeable and take pride in their work. I would have never took my car to Nissan/Infiniti for this work.

How do you expect the tech to see the galley gasket if it's located on the front of the engine?

 

That's a good question. And isn't the correct term gallery gasket? That's always bugged me, but mostly is because it's something that hints I don't know what's right or wrong.