After replacing the speed sensor in the honda last week, I got under the car to MAKE SURE the shop did what I thought they were supposed to do. Well, they did do the job but I was wrong in what I thought it would be. In any case, while I was underneath, I noticed some fresh transm oil dripping from the left front axle right at the transmission. Since I had a shop replace the axles less then 10,000 miles ago I figured they forgot to replace the seals and it would be a warranty repair for them.
Today I dropped the car off and they looked at it and called me to say that YES, it is a bad seal, but they don’t usually replace them when they do axles so its not a warranty repair. But since the car has almost 350,000 miles and they should have guessed it would need them, they offered to cut me a deal. Half price on the labor.
After spending over $400 on the speed sensor fix last week, this was just under $200, but it is one more thing I shouldn’t have to worry about for awhile now.
When the speedometer first quit, which led to the diagnosis of the speed sensor(which I did myself), I removed half the dash to get at the speedometer cluster. Once I realized it wasn’t the instrument cluster itself that was the problem, I decided that as long as I had it apart, I would try to get a used one on eBay to replace the original, thus fixing the gas gauge and the occasional flashing oil light. Well, the one I bought was similar but probably for a DX, not LX model, and had different wiring connectors so it wouldn’t fit my car. But the gas gauge was the same, so I switched them and lo’ and behold, its working. I really didn’t think it would, as when I had removed the original gas gauge from mine last year, well, thats what killed it. I figured thats what would happen with this one. Apparently, not a problem. So the $70 I paid for a wrong cluster didn’t go to waste. Now I just need to put the dash all back together, which I’ll do when I get back from my trip to S.C.