transfer case scam?
 

so i took my 85 k5 with a blown diff into the shop, since it was getting rebuilt i figured i should just have them regear the difs because they are at 3.42 with 35s so i figured id go up to 4 10s. well its been about a month and i called the guy and he said that they ran into a problem with the transfer case. wouldn't really go into details. do you guys know anything about that? or am i about to get hosed? like i said its been a month and this dude said it would take 3 or 4 days when i dropped it off? do i need to go pick it up? what would you guys do?

I would find out why he's messing with the transfer case when he's supposed to be working on your differentials. Sounds fishy to me, but he could be confusing your truck with someone elses or something.

If you're concerned (and it sounds like you are) just drop by unannounced one day to see what's up. If anything is torn apart that shouldn't be, ask why it is, etc.

so its fair to say you can regear without ever needing to tear open the transfer case?

Unless your transfer case is damaged, yes.

Regearing ONLY affects the differentials in the front and rear. You can regear those two and you don't have to touch anything else.

[Edit] The ONLY reason I can think of that they would need to touch your transmission area at all is to possibly change the vehicle speed sensor, but that shouldn't cause any issue that would be taking this long, and I doubt they're doing that.

Let's see... You take the truck in to have diff's ratio changed.

Then are told the transfer case has problems.

Now HOWEVER COULD that have happened while it was in the shop?!!!

Hmmmm... I wonder! Surely they wouldnt have test driven it with only one end done.... Nah!

he was making it sound like a fitment issue. like the choice of gears has a compatibility problem. his whole point was like if you regear to 4.10s then when you go to 4 wheel hi the ratio will be too high and you will crap the transfer case..which would make sense to me except its just 4.10s not that big of a change. if this sounds foreign to everyone im gonna have to side with fog. he told me they were backed up and he assigned the job to someone else and they were almost done and then i talked to him a week later and thats when he said there was fitment issues and he was looking to a 4x4 shop for a "fix" for the problem they ran into. i guess it was a fix for the mistake fog was talking about? so if everyone is in agreement that im getting scammed ill go down there and raise hell tomorrow. its such a shame too. i drove 45 minutes to take it to the most reputable shop.

Unless he ordered the wrong gears there should be no "fitment" issue at all. And if he thinks swapping gears will harm your transfer case, you need to pick up your truck right now and take it somewhere else, because you have a moron working on your truck.

Just one word of advice....

RUN!!!

Isn't it illegal for a shop to do work that you haven't approved? If he broke something, it should be on him. And if whatever is broken has nothing to do with what you brought it in for, you could have legal recourse I think. I've had one thing been charged to me that I didn't "approve" so to speak: the mechanic left my van outside in the sun in 100+° heat with the windows up and the rearview mirror couldn't take it and fell off. They messed up and didn't do what I brought it in for, so they glued it on while they still had it and charged me like $2, but I watched him do it beforehand. Anyways, if all else fails, raise Hell until amends are made