Addington, Christchurch

About The Gearbox Company

We have serviced the South Island since 1984, working on manual gearboxes and nothing much else. In that time the vehicles have changed completely and the job has not: find out what is actually wrong, explain the options honestly, and do the work properly.

One thing, done for a long time

Pete started fixing manual gearboxes in 1984. The Gearbox Company was incorporated in 1995, and the workshop has been at 156 Antigua Street in Addington since 2019 - but the work has been the same throughout, and so have a good many of the customers.

Most workshops treat a gearbox as the job they hope does not come in. It is heavy, it is slow, it ties up a hoist, and diagnosing it well takes experience that only comes from doing a great many of them. We went the other way and made it the entire business.

The consequence is a workshop that looks unusual: racks of gearboxes rather than a row of cars, a large stock of new and used parts, and a bench where units are stripped and measured all day. It also means that when something arrives that nobody else can work out, we have probably seen it before.

Pete Hayes

Pete owns the business and is usually the person you will speak to. He will take the time to explain the benefits and the catches of buying a used gearbox, or carrying out a partial repair, against a full recondition - because those are genuinely different products at genuinely different prices, and the right choice depends on your vehicle and your plans for it, not on ours.

He would rather talk you out of spending money than sell you a job you did not need. It is a slower way to run a workshop and it is why the same customers and the same workshops keep ringing.

Racing paid for the education

For over forty years this business has built gearboxes for racing, and it did the learning on cars it sponsored and campaigned itself - including cars making 1500hp. That is a tough school, and it is the reason we can look at an unusual failure and recognise the cause rather than guess at it. We will not learn on your car; we have already done that at our own expense.

Manuals here, automatics across the road

The Gearbox Company and Auto Transmissions Ltd are under the same ownership and face each other across Antigua Street - we are at 156, they are at 133 - and the line between them is the gearbox itself. Manual gearbox repairs, exchange units, used gearboxes, parts and performance work sit with us. Anything with an automatic transmission - a conventional auto, a CVT, a dual clutch unit, mechatronics, torque converters or valve bodies - sits with them, along with the scan tooling that side of the job needs.

They are two workshops with two phone numbers. For an automatic, ring Auto Transmissions directly on 03 379 3692. If you do not know which you have, ring us and we will tell you in a minute which door to come to.

Who we work for

• Christchurch and Canterbury motorists, directly
• General workshops throughout the South Island
• Engine builders, tuners and racers
• Extended mechanical warranty insurers, as an approved repairer
• Fleet operators and light commercial owners

Come and see us

We are at 156 Antigua Street in Addington, a few minutes from the central city, open Monday to Friday 7am to 4pm and some Saturdays. Courtesy vehicles are available. Directions and contact details.