1 - 2 Shift after cold start up

CounterMeasure · June 5, 2015

This is exactly what I have been experiencing as well. Hopefully it does improve with some miles. Hope to see GM come out with another update.

I had a nice long conversation with GM earlier today on all this. The conversation included them telling me it can take up to 1800 miles for the transmission to finish learning and settle in. I explained that at my average 18mpg, 100 gallons of premium fuel and 40 hours of my time driving it to get a Denali to ride like a Denali is advertised to is not acceptable. The conversation then changed course with them bringing up the "buyback" word. I got the feeling they're giving up on paying dealers to fix problems I find and I won't be in this truck much longer.

Jordan18 · June 5, 2015

Just drove mine back from the dealer. Shifting feels firmer and not as harsh on some gears as before. Still just as responsive as before. Seems to hold rpms a tad now and not as eager to shift, that could be from the relearn.

As I said before I'll gauge it after putting on a couple hundred miles from here on.

BuyAmericanIron · June 6, 2015

The 1-2 shift seems normal. Currently on my second transmission and both exhibited this condition. On May 13, dealer installed a new 8L90 in my truck. It was much better than the original with no clunk. Today, they completed the 15389 recall update. I fully agree with CounterMeasure. I am very tired of taking my truck to the dealer and then having to drive it so the transmission will "relearn" how to shift. I really like the truck otherwise but this is the fifth trip to the dealer for transmission problems. The lip service from the Ford and Dodge guys at work is getting old as well. Maybe this will fix it for good and it will be OK going forward. Don't really have a lot of confidence at this point. At 2890 miles, it is not looking good.

Rme2513 · June 6, 2015

The 1-2 shift seems normal. Currently on my second transmission and both exhibited this condition. On May 13, dealer installed a new 8L90 in my truck. It was much better than the original with no clunk. Today, they completed the 15389 recall update. I fully agree with CounterMeasure. I am very tired of taking my truck to the dealer and then having to drive it so the transmission will "relearn" how to shift. I really like the truck otherwise but this is the fifth trip to the dealer for transmission problems. The lip service from the Ford and Dodge guys at work is getting old as well. Maybe this will fix it for good and it will be OK going forward. Don't really have a lot of confidence at this point. At 2890 miles, it is not looking good.

i know what you meant about the ford and dodge guys I now have over 9k miles on mine and about 5k on the new transmission and I'm not sure about the update I think it was done on my truck when the new transmission was put in. I have no problems now other then having to wait for it to prime up at startup and the first the second shift when it's cold.

Randys Denali · July 7, 2015

I've also been experiencing a hard shift when it's cold outside going from park to drive. It's a long 2 second lag after I put the transmission in drive that it seems to slam into gear and the entire truck shakes. This is my first GM truck and I've had too many issues with it to leave me with any confidence to buy another when it's time. I'm curious how the ZF 8-speed that Ram has compares to GMs 8-speed.

Below is a 'cut and paste' from another thread with some of my other problems.

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I got my 2015 Sierra Denali (6.2L, 8 speed, 2WD, crew cab, 6.5' bed) on November 5th 2014.

In December 2014, my navigation system started showing me driving 50 miles away from my actual location and the onstar stopped working. It took a few weeks to get new parts, but they had to replace my entire main computer that handles the nav and onstar.

Approximately January/February 2015, my transmission was jerking when I would come to a stop. It feels as though it's holding on to 2nd gear until I come to a complete stop and then it jerks it into 1st gear and jolts my truck forward. There is also a audible clunking/banging noise coming from the transmission when this happens. ----- I took my truck in to the GMC dealer and they explained they explained they applied an update to the 'transmission control module' (but the technician also . That seemed to get rid of the problem. SIDE NOTE: When I took my truck in, they did not drive the truck or have me drive it with a technician riding along to understand what I was describing. They simply took the truck into the bay and reset the 'learning' feature on the transmission. After they applied the update/reset the learning feature, I drove the truck with a technician and I confirmed the problem was no longer noticeable.

Approximately early June, I took my truck in for an oil change, at which point I was notified of a recall on the 'Torque Converter Clutch'. They fixed the recall by applying a update to the torque converter clutch and that caused the problem to reappear in my transmission again. I took my truck in this morning to have it checked out again. I asked for a technician to drive my truck prior to fixing anything. The technician stated he did feel what I am talking about and wasn't immediately sure of what could be causing the problem. I was told they don't have time to find out what the problem is today and was asked to come back in two days when they have time.

The transmission is great up-shifting and down-shifting on all gears from 2nd through 8th gear. 1st gear is the only time I have issues. What i'm getting from my own experience and from what I've read from other peoples experience, they don't do anything to fix the transmission problem. They just reset the learning feature and after every couple thousand miles, the problem will keep coming back.

Rme2513 · July 7, 2015

I've also been experiencing a hard shift when it's cold outside going from park to drive. It's a long 2 second lag after I put the transmission in drive that it seems to slam into gear and the entire truck shakes. This is my first GM truck and I've had too many issues with it to leave me with any confidence to buy another when it's time. I'm curious how the ZF 8-speed that Ram has compares to GMs 8-speed.

Below is a 'cut and paste' from another thread with some of my other problems.

****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

I got my 2015 Sierra Denali (6.2L, 8 speed, 2WD, crew cab, 6.5' bed) on November 5th 2014.

In December 2014, my navigation system started showing me driving 50 miles away from my actual location and the onstar stopped working. It took a few weeks to get new parts, but they had to replace my entire main computer that handles the nav and onstar.
Approximately January/February 2015, my transmission was jerking when I would come to a stop. It feels as though it's holding on to 2nd gear until I come to a complete stop and then it jerks it into 1st gear and jolts my truck forward. There is also a audible clunking/banging noise coming from the transmission when this happens. ----- I took my truck in to the GMC dealer and they explained they explained they applied an update to the 'transmission control module' (but the technician also . That seemed to get rid of the problem. SIDE NOTE: When I took my truck in, they did not drive the truck or have me drive it with a technician riding along to understand what I was describing. They simply took the truck into the bay and reset the 'learning' feature on the transmission. After they applied the update/reset the learning feature, I drove the truck with a technician and I confirmed the problem was no longer noticeable.
Approximately early June, I took my truck in for an oil change, at which point I was notified of a recall on the 'Torque Converter Clutch'. They fixed the recall by applying a update to the torque converter clutch and that caused the problem to reappear in my transmission again. I took my truck in this morning to have it checked out again. I asked for a technician to drive my truck prior to fixing anything. The technician stated he did feel what I am talking about and wasn't immediately sure of what could be causing the problem. I was told they don't have time to find out what the problem is today and was asked to come back in two days when they have time.
The transmission is great up-shifting and down-shifting on all gears from 2nd through 8th gear. 1st gear is the only time I have issues. What i'm getting from my own experience and from what I've read from other peoples experience, they don't do anything to fix the transmission problem. They just reset the learning feature and after every couple thousand miles, the problem will keep coming back.

The only problems I have is when it's cold the first shift from first to second hesitates and if I don't wait when I crank it up to let the transmission prim up it will slip and jerk It sounds like you might wanna try and push for a new transmission like some of us got you need to call GM and complain ALOT that seamed to work for me while mine is not perfect its a lot better then it was. When I was getting the update on mine last week I was talking to the service tech and there was something in the instructions he said of the truck had and was in the program ( not sure what ) not to do the update so might want to look into a that also

Randys Denali · July 8, 2015

The only problems I have is when it's cold the first shift from first to second hesitates and if I don't wait when I crank it up to let the transmission prim up it will slip and jerk It sounds like you might wanna try and push for a new transmission like some of us got you need to call GM and complain ALOT that seamed to work for me while mine is not perfect its a lot better then it was. When I was getting the update on mine last week I was talking to the service tech and there was something in the instructions he said of the truck had and was in the program ( not sure what ) not to do the update so might want to look into a that also

Thanks for the info Robert. I'm taking my truck in tomorrow to have them check it again and I'm going to start pushing for a new transmission. Even if they can fix the problem, I'm curious if all the problems I've had so far have done any damage.