My mom never got her differential oil changed at 7500 miles in her Camaro SS. She's at 13,000 miles and I think it needs to be changed. Anyone know about how much this costs? Like a rough estimate?

 

why not do it yourself?
all you need to do is pull the bolts out and let it drain
stick a new gasket on, seal it up, bolt it up, and fill it up
not too hard
just a thought

 

Unfortunately I don't have the tools or even jackstands/blocks/ramps to get under the car. I've never done it before either.

 

o well yea, you need jack/stands
and i had never done it before either, but it was pretty easy imo
good luck though

 

Perhaps you can call the dealership and find out?

 

Changing the diff. fluid isn't something you need to do every 5000-7500 miles. I guess it wouldn't hurt but IMO it's a waste of money. I believe GM recommends changing it every 30k miles...I have 45k on my car and I've done it twice.

 

I did mine this last weekend for $19, I had never done it either.

 

it will probably cost somewhere between 75 and 100 bucks. my dealer is super expensive ( why i do not know )

but it is quite easy to do as you have been told. just make sure whoever does it, removes the cover and cleaned the gears, not just a "suck and fill"

 

Also, double check to be sure they know about the special additive. A quick libe place forgot once and newly ruined my rearend.

 

guy $20 stands at autozone.. its EASY just undo rear , empty... put back on with gasket...(or sealant) and refill.. i never worked on a car, and changed out rear axles(in doing.. need to refill rear)

cory

 

Changing the differential oil isn't something you have to do every 7500 miles. It is only something you have to do on the '98+ Camaros after the first 7500 miles because GM didn't do it before the cars were shipped. Supposedly it will be full of metal shavings and it is one of those mandatory things you are supposed to do.

I went to the dealership today, found out we should do it as the package deal where we get all of the fluids changed and the chassis lubricated and it would be $499. What a rip off. I check our fluids all of the time to make sure they are healthy and nothing is wrong with any of them. My mom is thinking about hiring a Camaro owner in the area to teach me how to do things like this since we are about to get our third Camaro, maybe a little deal where I help them work on their car and vice versa for whenever it helps to have another set of hands. My parents are divorced and although my dad works on his '92 Corvette, he won't teach me anything.

Are you supposed to add limited-slip fluid? I don't know if Camaros have limited-slip differentials... It has ASR and that is all I know.

Don't yell at me for asking something so basic, but what exactly does the gasket look like?

 

The one on the upper left is what the 7.5 gasket looks like:

http://richmondgear.com/01gm.html

Readily available at autozone.

Excellent page on basic maintenance:

http://www.bfranker.badz28.com/fbody/lubeoil.htm

Investing in a few tools will pay off well in the long run. Not just from the money saved, but also from not having things done wrong to your vehicle by incompetent/crooked "mechanics". Even stealerships botch work/rip people off.

 

yea, besides getting ripped off, you want to know the job is done right also
shelling out a little for jack and stands will pay off in the long run waaay better than having somebody else do it for you
check shoebox's site out too
i can't remember it so i can't link it, but if you find a post by him, it will be in his sig

 

It just seems like such a big investment to buy tools and materials. I would also be breaking the rules of my apartment complex. I could do the work in my garage, but it is really tight and narrow, I couldn't very easily do anything. I really wish I could do all of the work because I don't like the mechanics joy riding in our cars, but it just doesn't seem likely that I could get away with it. My garage faces the leasing office.

 

How so...you're willing to pay $100 to have a mechanic change it, but you can goto autozone and get a floor jack/jack stand combo for under $30, a gasket for $5 and the fluid additive for probably $15 or so. So its half the price, and when its all said and done, you have tools which you can use to change it again the following year and it will only cost you 15-20.