One workshop, two eras of gearbox

A decade on modern and classic gearboxes, differentials and mechatronic units, and deliberately all four rather than one of them. The same people who set up a crown wheel and pinion strip and bench test mechatronic units and code them to the car.

That is unusual. Heritage rebuilders send the modern work away and modern automatic shops send the classic work away, and both of them are sending it to somebody who only does half the job. We would rather be the workshop that does not have to.

• Classic manual gearboxes from the 1950s onwards. BMC, Ford, Vauxhall, Triumph, MG, Jaguar, Rover and Land Rover, plus Laycock overdrives and classic automatics.
• Modern automatics, dual-clutch boxes and CVTs. ZF, Aisin, Mercedes, Ford, Jatco, Hyundai and Kia, and the VW Group DSG and S tronic family.
• Mechatronic units, valve bodies, torque converters, differentials and transfer boxes.

• We diagnose before we quote. Codes, live data, pressure testing and a road test where the car is with us. A code is a starting point, not a diagnosis.
• We rebuild rather than replace. Where a unit can be repaired properly, that’s what we do. Where it can’t, we’ll tell you.
• We test before it leaves. Bench tested, and road tested where we have the car.
• We tell you honestly when it isn’t worth it. Some cars aren’t worth the rebuild. We’d rather lose the job than take money for something that doesn’t make sense.

The workshop is at Unit 2a Prince Street Business Park in Leek, Staffordshire. It is the Staffordshire Moorlands rather than the middle of a city, which suits the work: there is room to have several units apart at once, and space for a car to sit while a box is out of it.

Leek is about twenty minutes from Stoke-on-Trent, half an hour from Macclesfield and Buxton, and inside an hour of most of Cheshire, Derbyshire and the north Midlands. Beyond that, we collect.

Purpose built, with the tooling and the diagnostic equipment the work actually needs. Units come apart on the bench rather than on the floor, and there is room to have more than one in pieces at a time, which is what makes a job that turns out to need something else survivable rather than a three-week hold-up.

We do the mechanical side as well. If you would rather not take the gearbox, the differential or the transfer box out yourself, we can remove it and refit it, so you can send us the car instead of the unit.

12 months on every rebuilt unit, parts and labour. If something isn’t right, bring it back.

We collect gearboxes, differentials and mechatronic units anywhere in mainland UK, and we’ll collect whole vehicles where that makes more sense. Remove the unit and crate it, or leave it to us.

• Private owners and restorers
• Independent garages and specialists on trade terms
• Motorsport and historic racing
• Classic car dealers and restoration shops