How to overcome 3-Speed Automatic (2000 Chevy Prizm)

[Sven7]

If you don't need the car to drive to work or whatever, go for the swap. Surely you could join a Corolla or sport compact forum and find someone near you that could lend a hand. When you're done with the donor car, sell off some parts and scrap it. Depending on the condition, you could break even.

Start searching Craigslist for compatible swaps, and remember that even cars with severe rear-end collisions, broken engines or otherwise debilitating problems could still have manual transmissions in good condition. They will be much cheaper, and the scrap value will be the same.

In the short run, you'll spend money and time. In the long run, you'll have experience working on the car, more knowledge about how a transmission works, a source from which to pull spares, and of course an extra set of wheels for some snow tires.

If you're not mechanically inclined or crazy, sell it and buy something new. But from the OP it sounds like you're not afraid to get in there and work on things.

Remember that when you're looking at EPA guidelines you can easily add 20-30% to the MPG figures to account for driving style and modifications.

[baldlobo]

Fuel Economy of 2000 Chevrolet Prizm

well your getting better then what the government says you should be able too; if you can find the 4 speed auto to swap if you can't drive standard

i think your going to need to areo mod anything to get 40mpg except for the xfi.

you have a rebadged corolla

[FF777]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

Think pete c hit the nail on the head: do some research to figure out what your car is worth, then shine it up, sell it & replace it with something more efficient with a manual transmission.

An XFi would be grand, but they're getting old, and rare as hens teeth. And unless you're a hard core efficiency nut that must have one of the "high performance" models of the fuel economy world, the XFi's savings over any number of other efficient compact cars probably aren't worth the time & trouble.

When you say they arn't worth the time and trouble are you saying because of their age there will be deferred maintenance? Do you think it would be hard finding parts for the car of that age? It seems like as soon as you address the maintenance issues after you buy it and keep up on maintenance the XFI would be a nice car to have. I'm not sure how the age of the car would affect real world MPG though and if it could be corrected.

[MetroMPG]

Rust will be an issue, depending on where the car lived (and where you live).

By all means, if you're into DIY, and can find an XFi in decent shape, go for it!

I don't mean to discourage you. But if time (and effort) is of the essense, there are other options that would serve you almost as well.

[Cobb]

If its not slipping or anything, dont touch it. I had a ford e250 I did all the basics to including new fluid and filter. Within half a tank of gas the tranny started to slip and it was a real hand full to drive. The fluid was black and smelled like onions.

Originally Posted by razor02097

Check the transmission fluid. If it is dark and burnt the tranny is screwed anyway. DO NOT CHANGE THE FLUID IF IT IS DARK AND BURNT. Reason is the damage is done and likely the only thing that is preventing the trans from slipping is the varnish build up. If you were to change the fluid the new fluid will eat the varnish from the plates and the transmission may start to slip.

[stillsearching]

I'll agree with the others here - if you cant do something like a trans swap yourself, sell the car, the fuel savings vs the swap cost will probably not pay for itself soon enough to be worthwhile. Starting at 180k there's a question of how much longer will it last to begin with. Unless there is a strong emotional attachment to the car or a strong family pressure to not have you resell the car (ie its not really a gift they just wanted you to drive it) it makes more sense to start with something closer to what you want as the endpoint.

Ignoring that, swapping in an OD automatic would probably be easier than converting to a stick shift - no having to work up where to put the shifter and clutch and stuff, and if you pick factory models it might be as simple as pull the engine and trans out of the subframe with a cherry picker (not necessarily that simple mind you, different FWD's let you remove different parts of stuff easily), bolting up a new one, stick it back in, connect wires to factory ECU if its a supported transmission option, and realign the car doable in a looong weekend with two cases of beer. Please underline the "might be as simple as" with bright red marker though, when it's not that simple your offline for weeks trying to figure stuff out.

If you look for a geo metro or xfi the biggest problem is they are so light they rust to hell to the point of physical danger - the steering control arms rot out and one hard bump later you could find the left wheel aiming left, the right one aiming right, and no response from your steering wheel no matter what you do with it. Thats their main "you will DIE if you dont fix this" problem that I know of, all other ones are just the normal problems of a nearly two decade old car, including ones often abused or neglected because they were treated as cheap throwaways by the mentality of many of the buyers of them.

Rear wheel drive vehicles have the ability to change gear ratios alot more easily - either changing the rear axle, or adding an overdrive unit, or changing the transmission type. FWD are so compactly put together and everything so close there's rarely any way to change anything from factory configuration very much. Whatever engine, trans, and axle ratio you have is probably what you just have. That said it's possible that different axle ratios either exist for the car - it's even possible some gearmaker might be able to make a custom numerically lower ratio for you within the dimensions of the housing, probably for less cost than the mechanic quoted price for a transmission swap. These things are done for racers, I haven't heard of them being done for economy and there's probably a limit of how much you could change it though. However the changing of the axle ratio and fixing the speedometer error should be alot less work than a transmission wap and the total cost including machining the gears probably alot less, maybe even under $1000.


That all being said if you got friends to help do a transmission swap, you almost might as well stick in a VW diesel or something at the same time and go all the way.

[FF777]

Well I'm consistently getting 32 mpgs over a tank of gas combined doing mostly 45 mph on the highway. That's 23 percent over the new mpg rating (26 mpg combined) and 19 percent over old mpg rating (27 combined). The car runs good so I'll just have to live with it for as long as the car lasts. I have an emotional attachment to my corolla. It has been good to me and has never let me down.

[Honda100]

I'd say you're doing well at 32 mpgs. At 45 mph I never saw the bright side of 30 mpg, usually 28-29. As for how long it will last, if your car runs well and you take care of it, I would hesitate to say you'd make it to 250 - 300k miles. My 91 Prizm had 319k miles when I sold it, still ran and passed safety inspections. Then my 2001 Prizm had 220k and my most recent 89 Corolla had over 280k. Gotta love Toyotas.

[stillsearching]

You could always try pulse and glide? I'm not as sure how it works with an automatic, or whether it might involve shifting into neutral, or forcing torque converter lockup with a switch under acceleration, but since your only seeking to average lower speeds anyways I would think that the difference between P&G with a 4speed automatic and a 3speed automatic would be almost nil. You need the extra ratio to accelerate up to speed afterall.

Whether there would be any shorter transmission life as a result of going into and out of gear I don't know, i wouldn't think so but something with 180k isn't going to last forever anyways. If there's enough attachment to the car it eventually provides the excuse when replacing the transmission to put in an OD at that time. : P

[javielopr]

All I can do a transmission swap for 350.00

I did it for my 2001 prizm from 3 speed to a 4 speed automatic and purchased the tranny in AAA auto parts on ebay for 230.00 usd.

Originally Posted by Cobb

If its not slipping or anything, dont touch it. I had a ford e250 I did all the basics to including new fluid and filter. Within half a tank of gas the tranny started to slip and it was a real hand full to drive. The fluid was black and smelled like onions.