Lone Ranger

My '95's 4L60E saga:

August 2001 @ 24,000 miles: GMPP warranty claim: Rear bushing failure in transmission, replaced and repaired (prev. owner)

October 2002 @ 31,000 miles: GMPP warranty claim: Torque converter refusing to lockup. result: they replaced converter pump and/or pump valve assembly (can't remember exact).

June 1, 2003: @ 34,000 miles: Torque converter is again refusing to lockup-- exact same symptoms as what prompted the Oct 2002 claim @ 31,000 miles.

As some of you might recall from a post last week, I recently discovered that when they did the October repair job they apparently overfilled my tranny by about 16 ounces. There were clustered bubbles on the dipstick (foaming?) and level showed substantially above the hot side cross hatch upper boundary. Did this overfill condition potentially bring on the new old problem again? Wish I knew. Or maybe they didn't fix ir right the first time? Who knows.

At any rate, this time around I'm going to make a demand that they install a new 4L60E or remanufactured/warrantied unit instead of cracking open this current gear box again. It might even be more cost effective for them (GMPP) to do that, from a labor stand point. the GMPP plan I have is Major Guard which is their supposed flagship ext. warranty. We'll see what their colors are, however, in their response to my pending 'I want a different transmission' demand.

Does anyone think I'm out of line with this demand, considering this will be the 3rd claim in 10,000 miles on this tranny? What do you think my odds of success are?

rocketfinger

I don't know beans about that transmission, but given the shop's track record to date, I'd take it somewhere else. That warranty is honored at any dealer, right?

StealDads67

I would suggest goin back to the same place and demanding a new tranny under no cost to you. They should do it. i has been "fixed" 3 times already.

Good luck :thumbs:

vader86

I'd demand a new one, brand new with a warranty. Rebuilds are sh** for automatics, theyll break even easier in my experience.

Sounds like you just got a crappy one though, its a rather strong transmission (because i havent blown my 700r4 yet :D), but with bad gear ratio drop in 1-2.

Excessive heat is what causes them to really break, overfilling by 16oz is a bit much too though, I guess it couldve caused some more wear.

But if you can have it honored at another dealer, do so.


[Modified by vader86, 7:09 PM 6/1/2003]

Lone Ranger

Well dealership X is where I had the tranny work done last time, it is the dealership where I bought the car-- not a piece of inventory but privately owned by the warranty and finance mgr their. Anywho, dealership Y has a bit of a better rep for service dept. than X does and I had the opti, water pump, intake seal, front main seal and some other stuff done there.

Ultimately the decision on how to go about the repair will be handed down by the claim rep that GMPP sends to look at it. So I'll need to get the contact info for the GMPP claim rep when one is assigned and pitch my case to him (or her). Its like insurance sort of. On big jobs GMPP sends a claim rep to look at the car and talk to the mechanic etc. My concern about using shop X again is that if GMPP refuses to do a new tranny then, well, shop X apparently didn't do it very well the 1st time so why risk them f-ing it up twice, especially since this is probably the last hoorah where I don't get $kinned since warranty expires in two months. So, in other words if GMPP only authorizes the same tear down and pump replacement routine again I'd rather have it at shop Y for that. I think I just answered my own question about which shop to drop it at. :(