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I've always had a manual trans but I'm thinking the next car may be an automatic. Are the older Borg-Warners pretty good? If they do fail, can they be swapped out to a newer box? (I've already done a quick archives search but didn't find much.)
Thanks in advance!
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How old a car are you looking at? I think my old '80 240 was the last with a Borg Warner automatic (a 3-speed BW55, I think), although I understand that some much later (newer) 740's had a particularly bad one (i.e., no front pump, so if you revved it in neutral during, e.g., an emission test, it would burn out the fluid).
But at least since my '83 240, all of them have been AisinWarner instead -- that's the AW70/71 designation, a 4-speed (or 3-speed + OD, actually) -- and they're considered bulletproof. At least, with synthetic fluid and flushes every 75K miles or so, my experience has been trouble free for 250-300K miles that I've kept my many 240s.
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No no no no no.... :-)
Only *some* 740's (mid-1980's, mostly the turbo-diesel ones) had the bad transmission: A ZF, not a BW. By all accounts, the ZF is a fantastic transmission once rebuilt. All other 740's (most) had an AW, but with a lock up trans. Actually much nicer than what the 240's got, and just as bulletproof.
As for 240 transmissions, the BW saw it's last days in 1980, I reckon. They're rock solid, and basically the same transmission as the AW... just with the OD unit.
All things equal, BW's should be just as rock solid as the AW's. The BW's are just older, and probably more abused because of it. They'll also use a harder to find ATF (type F?). The real killer with the BW is that without the OD, you're revving like crazy at highway speed.... which is just a drag. The hit on fuel economy doesn't help either. :-)
-Ryan
--
Athens, Ohio
1987 245 DL 314k, Dog-mobile
1990 245 DL 134k M47, E-codes, GT Sway Bars
1991 745 GL 300k, Regina, 23/21mm Turbo Sway Bars
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Yes, I was wrong -- it was the ZF tranny, not a BW, that is so notorious.
But I know I had said "some", rather than "all"): my quote, "...although I understand that some much later (newer) 740's had a particularly bad one...."
In fact, you can identify the ZF's by the shift quadrant -- instead of the PRND21 of the AW's (with a pushbutton controlling 4-3 shifts), the ZF's have PRND321 (and don't have the button).
But I'm also surprised (but won't challenge) that "...By all accounts, the ZF is a fantastic transmission once rebuilt...." I thought that the problem was a design problem -- i.e., I had heard that it lacks a front fluid pump, so that it depended solely on driveshaft rotation (i.e., the car had to be moving) to circulate fluid), rather than a front pump that just depends on crankshaft (or T.C.) rotation -- perhaps this is a popular myth?
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Thanks.
But as I wrote in the first message, most of my experience has been with AW's.
I did have a BW (a 3-speed BW35) in my two 164s (a '73 bought new, and much later a '75), and I hated these because, once rolling, you couldn't get it to shift back down into 1st with a full-stop, which meant that moving in traffic was awfully like a slug (this wasn't a flaw, it was a deliberate design feature!).
I did have a '78 and '80 240 with a BW55 (another 3-sp) -- and probably what you're looking for right now, viz. late '70's -- and these were merely OK (readily shifting over the full range of gears), but their rear axle ratio had to be a compromise, so it was neither a low enough 1st (on really steep back-country hills the engine really strained to climb) nor a high enough 3rd (the engine was pretty busy at real highway speeds). The AW70's 3+OD was a blessing when it came along.
But bottom line, I never had transmission problems with any of these even though I kept them a long time (e.g., the '80 went for 285,000 miles, and was still going strong when the body was just too rusted to keep any longer).
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