QuestionI was recently informed that second gear in my transmission is "gone" and the transmission will need to be rebuilt or replaced. The car has 70K miles and the transmission was rebuilt under warranty at 34K miles when third gear was found to be "gone". I have talked with the dealers and GM customer assistance on getting some relief in this matter but have been told that nothing can be done. I would like to know if you have any suggestions on resolving the matter as well as what the car (in good shape other than the transmission) might be worth if I trade it in now for another vehicle (GM or other). Thank you for you assistance.
AnswerHi Paul - Sorry to hear about your misfortune. A few things that may help to make up your mind.
First of all, the 4L60E tranny has been excellent in the past few years. Very few problems. Has anyone given you any ideas as to why this thing went out? Overheating? Overcooling? Pulling a load in Overdrive? Was there a transmission oil cooler on the Sub, factory or otherwise? If it was otherwise, was it installed correctly, so as to not overcool? We had one such instance where the cooler cooled continuously, even in -40 weather and the fluid gelled and then starved the bearings for lubrication.
You may want to invest some time talking to a reputable tranny shop to see if they can give you some ideas as to what may have happened - all of this so if you decide to keep the truck that the problem won't reoccur.
My experience has been that with your mileage, you would not see any satisfaction with warranty, and I have seen this with GM and Ford - they all seem to have the same idea on this point. One thing that has been a sore spot with me, is that the manufacturers tend to take a "fixed what is broke" ideal, and only fix the problm with the tranny, rather than doing a Unit Replacement. This probably led to your current situation. It may not have reoccurred if a Service Replacement Transmission Assembly had been installed at the time of your intial problem.
I would suggest that your choices are few. Because of regional pricing differences, I have to take the Fifth on the value of your Sub, BUT I can give you some resources to check out. Go to www.kbb.com, www.trader.com, and also check out the newspaper to get an idea of what 2WD Subs are selling for in your area. This helps to get you some idea of what you are in for.
Being in the fourth year of ownership, your depreciation is just now starting to level out, so the worst of it has already been paid on the truck. If the problem could be pinpointed, it would be worthwhile keeping the Sub so long as it did not reoccur. Something else you could do, is to install a GM SRTA (Service Replacement Transmission Assembly), so then you have a 3 yr/50,000 mile warranty, and some backing for the next while. This would give me some piece of mind.
And of course, you could trade it off, if you are in a position to do so. Here you might be better off to let the dealer fix the tranny rather than fix it and then trade it off. I would not let this keep you from having other dealerships have a crack at the deal either. Have them go to where the truck is, to have a look at it and get you a price difference.
I hope that this helps, and if you have any other concerns, please feel free to drop me a line.
Automotively yours,
Dean
