New speed record for cooking a 4l80 tranny

JimWilson · September 18, 2003

Well, my truck is in the shop. Seems like my tranny has decided it's vacation time. It started making some faint noises at about 16K, but by 18K it was singing to me pretty loud. The tech "had never seen one of these trannies go that fast". I told them it sounded like the torque converter was about to puke. We'll see if I'm right.

Makes me wish I had actually beat it, instead of babying it. At least then I would have a reason for it...

Shaners · September 18, 2003

Man... that is very premature. But there are always going to be a few that will fail.

I don't know if you remember (or if you were a member yet), but I lost my Transfer case at about 4k miles. GM instructed the dealer to "rebuild it" but it wasn't any better, so GM expressed me a new one from the factory, and all is well... The worst part about it was that as my new truck sat in pieces at the dealer, I was driving an F150 loaner truck!!!

01Burb · September 18, 2003

You will be happy to know that all broken trannys removed from GM trucks are sent back to the factory where they are disassembled and analysed to find the source of failure.

I live about 5 miles from the Allison plant in White Marsh MD and have had the tour The broken trannys arrive in long black boxes. The workers call them 'coffins' lol

BTW, you could eat off the floor of that plant. It is unreal.

Sorry to hear about yours. But there is always a silver lining. If the trans on my 96 Ram hadn't gone south I wouldn't have bought my Burb!

MCourson · September 18, 2003

Unfortunatley you are one of the few who will suffer a failure. Hopefully the dealer will do you right, and if they dont GM will.

Sorry to hear about yours. But there is always a silver lining. If the trans on my 96 Ram hadn't gone south I wouldn't have bought my Burb!

Very true. If the trans. hadn't went out on my dad's old 89 Shelby Dakota I wouldn't have the 94. But at least GM trannys aren't anywhere near as notorious for self destruction as Dudge's are.

tinman · September 18, 2003

My 4l80 went at 7000 miles. No warning just a zip niose and no go. Then it took the dealer 2 week to get a new one. 10000 on the replacement and no problems.

HendyPhoto · September 18, 2003

01Burb, how many of these bad trannys does the plant get?? I hope they dont get ALOT!!!

twavor · September 18, 2003

Hate to burst anyones bubble, but when I was still at the GM dealership back in

'99-'00 I had a Silverado come back in with 152 miles on it and reverse was out of it--don't remember why, but GM wil replace--not repair-- the trans as long as the part is still in the current model year. The guy wasn't hard on it, he was the local school principal--kind of an a-hole, but at least not the worst I had ever dealt with considering the circumstances. Will have to say that although it was the first Silverado trans I had replaced it will probably always be the quickest also!

Travis

CMNTMXR81 · September 18, 2003

Yea, I too have seen many 4L60/80 E's come back virtually the day after they came off the truck.

It's not a common everyday thing, but when you consider GM sells how many trucks with these transmissions, some are bound to come back statistically.

JimWilson · September 18, 2003

The worst part about it was that as my new truck sat in pieces at the dealer, I was driving an F150 loaner truck!!!

Hey, I wonder if these dealers are in cahoots, because I'm driving an F150 FX4 as a loaner right now!

JimWilson · September 18, 2003

You will be happy to know that all broken trannys removed from GM trucks are sent back to the factory where they are disassembled and analysed to find the source of failure.

Unfortunately, mine won't be among those -- the dealer is "fixing it". Turns out I was right, it was the torque converter, and the pump. What a POS!

Sorry to hear about yours. But there is always a silver lining.

Well, not always...

JimWilson · September 18, 2003

Unfortunatley you are one of the few who will suffer a failure. Hopefully the dealer will do you right, and if they dont GM will.

I wish either of those 2 statements were true, but they're not.

I told the service manager I wanted a new trans, that if this one roached that soon it was garbage from the word go and I didn't want it. The dealer is completely apathetic -- they couldn't care less. They said it would only be fixed, that they had no intention of giving me a new tranny.

So I called GM's "customer assistance" (now there's an oxymoron, kinda like government intelligence). I tried being polite at first, but they said the conversation with the dealer led them to believe that it could be "fixed" and that's all they would authorized. No matter what I said, or how I said it, I couldn't get this person to budge. And they wouldn't put their manager on the phone either! Basically it was this; tough luck on you getting stuck with a turd, no we won't replace your tranny -- under any circumstances, ever!, no we don't care how much time you spent or how much this is costing you, and have a nice day. Basically, they told me to go f#ck off.

You know, I stopped buying American vehicles about 25 years ago because of the pathetic junk they produced. Seeing all the so called quality surveys and JD Powers studies that indicated that they had improved their products and changed there ways made me take another chance. But I got burned by their crap again. I can't believe that after only 15 months of ownership I find myself saying the same thing I did over 2 decades ago; this is the last American vehicle I will ever own. I just don't have the tolerance for this crap anymore...

MarkD · September 18, 2003

Well Jim, that's what you get for going the CHEAP way out!

01Burb · September 19, 2003

01Burb, how many of these bad trannys does the plant get?? I hope they dont get ALOT!!!

I recall seeing about 9 'coffins' lined up. I assume that they also had 2 or 3 being ripped apart. Keep in mind that only complete failures get returned. I'm sure that a lot are repaired under warranty by the dealers.

Not bad since they make between 2500 to 4000 per week depending upon demand (275 per 8 hour shift). Only for the big Silverados/GMCs

It's a great facility. If you live around here (MD), see if you can get a tour. I did some work for them so I got to peek.

gmcsid · September 19, 2003

When you get a replacement transmission it is a reconditioned unit. Your transmission is made with all new parts. I would prefer to fix a transmission in a new truck to replacing it.