transmission issue

Swiftks · August 17, 2021

Quick Update... After getting the transmission flushed and all fuilds switched over to Amsoil Signature, the truck does seem to shift and ride smoother.... Could be placebo, only time will tell.

The mechanic working on it did call me and tell me that during the road test before changing fuilds they noticed the following ( I had him write it down in case I need to take it to the dealership in the future, I can give them specific info.):

"During the road test the pulse width modulated torque converter clutch engagement seemed to be revving a little high, never fully engaging at 100% engagement, and sometimes fluctuating 50 to 100 RPMs for seemingly no reason. This was not enough to trigger the diagnostic trouble code, but did seem and feel a bit unusual."

Also, after changing all the fuilds, he also told me the ATF that came out wasn't dirty or discolored, but did smell a little on the burnt side. And also that the front diff was about 1/2 a quart low of fuild... Wanted to know if I had it worked on previously, and I said nope, only has 24k miles on it, must have come from the factory that way. So there's that.

Anyway, will continue to update as needed.

mfbearded · August 20, 2021

tech that drove my car seemed to have the same thoughts...he said on the early build 2019s they didnt use atf that met the specs and demands of the new transmission. once it was discovered they changed it at the factory level but never issued a recall for the affected trucks. wierd but wasnt gonna make an issue out of it. agian after the flush the improved difference was immediately noticeable. in fact i towed something last week and felt a difference there too.

SilveradoRST · August 20, 2021

Does the flush really get all of the old ATF out of the transmission? How do they deal with the fluid inside the cooler lines?

Z45 · August 20, 2021

Mass production and cost concerns lead to "good enough", but not necessarily the best available. Look at OEM lubes, for example, decent quality, "good enough" quality, but not necessarily the best available. The same could be said for shocks, brake pads and filters. Investor owned and driven companies such as GM are all about $$. Engineers and bean counters are required to seek out the lowest prices on parts and services.

Grumpy Bear · August 20, 2021

10 hours ago, SilveradoRST said:

Does the flush really get all of the old ATF out of the transmission? How do they deal with the fluid inside the cooler lines?

Nothing short of a build will remove ALL fluid but the exchange will remove most of it. Enough of it to be effective. Just like an oil change never removes ALL the oil but enough to be effective. The cooler and lines hold ounces, not quarts.

Grumpy Bear · August 20, 2021

5 hours ago, elcamino said:

Mass production and cost concerns lead to "good enough", but not necessarily the best available. Look at OEM lubes, for example, decent quality, "good enough" quality, but not necessarily the best available. The same could be said for shocks, brake pads and filters. Investor owned and driven companies such as GM are all about $$. Engineers and bean counters are required to seek out the lowest prices on parts and services.

Well and thoughtfully said

Worth the repost

:thumbs:

JimCost2014 · August 20, 2021

Mass production and cost concerns lead to "good enough", but not necessarily the best available

Very true statement, but if we had a dollar for every complaint about how much someone already paid for one of these trucks, I could retire. Now take that same person and tell them for another $xxxxx.xx dollars, you can have premium parts/fluids throughout the whole truck, how many would pay the difference?

The trucks are not bad values, if you were to take the time to price out each part needed individually to build a truck, then tools, skills, and time needed, it makes sense to buy it already done, plus you get a factory warranty behind it.

Most things will fail, no matter how much is spent, and some fluids are better than other, but none are a once and done for lifetime use. Brakes will need to be replaced, hoses, and so on.

Big companies exist to make money, not a surprise to anyone, but I can not imagine a lot on the site here go to work for free each day out of the kindness of their hearts, we all like money too.

Great thing about our country, you do not have to drive a truck you do not like or trust, get rid of it, buy something your perception of is better, more than likely, being a machine, it will fail someday too.

Grumpy Bear · August 20, 2021

46 minutes ago, JimCost2014 said:

Mass production and cost concerns lead to "good enough", but not necessarily the best available

Very true statement, but if we had a dollar for every complaint about how much someone already paid for one of these trucks, I could retire.

The trucks are not bad values, if you were to take the time to price out each part needed individually to build a truck, then tools, skills, and time needed, it makes sense to buy it already done, plus you get a factory warranty behind it.

Most things will fail, no matter how much is spent, and some fluids are better than other, but none are a once and done for lifetime use. Brakes will need to be replaced, hoses, and so on.

Big companies exist to make money, not a surprise to anyone, but I can not imagine a lot on the site here go to work for free each day out of the kindness of their hearts, we all like money too.

Great thing about our country, you do not have to drive a truck you do not like or trust, get rid of it, buy something your perception of is better, more than likely, being a machine, it will fail someday too.

I don't think anyone expects to buy a vehicle of any type, make or model and not spend some money in maintenance. Dad use to look at a new hole in the knee of my jeans as a child and ask me if that was a 'Wear hole" or a "Tear hole". There are parts of a truck we wear out and are meant to wear out. Tire's, wipers and so on. There are parts of the truck we break abusing it. Just have' n some fun dad. But I don't think we expect (and I chose the wrong example) to buy jeans with the knees so poorly made that the disappear on the first washing either.

There is this argument that if a hammer maker made the perfect hammer he wouldn't sell hammers long.

Read that back slowly and ask if that is the truth. I don't think so.

GM thinks they should sell a truck every three years to say 1/5 of the world population to stay in business. Then attempt to force that to be the truth by engineering it to fail in the period.

Here's an idea. Build one that last a human lifetime and sell one to the 8 BILLION people on this earth once. That market has no end in sight. 385,000 new people enter this life every day. How big a market do you need?

I now have just under 150,000 miles on Pepper and she's six years old. I spent just under $5,000 fixing the suspension to make it SAFE and comfortable. I've spent about 2X what Joe Average spends on oil changes and 2X in cost for those fluids. That means Pepper has now outlived TWO new trucks and I've saved the cost of ONE new truck spending perhaps $7,000 in 'fixing' and maintaining. It looks new, It drives new. So....

1 hour ago, JimCost2014 said:

Now take that same person and tell them for another $xxxxx.xx dollars, you can have premium parts/fluids throughout the whole truck, how many would pay the difference?

Yea that would be me. I'll spend $7K to save $70K every day of the year.

Yea....I'm a freak...I get it. I get 125K out of tires and 200K plus from brakes because I value my TIME more than my money. I don't waste my time making money just to burn it in the BBQ pit.

JimCost2014 · August 20, 2021

28 minutes ago, Grumpy Bear said:

Build one that last a human lifetime

There are so many variables why that could not even happen unfortunately.

If Ford would have kept making almost all of their parts, and not relying on outsourcing parts like every manufacture (almost) in the world now, would they still be around?

Some parts that fail in our trucks are a "shame on you GM", but most are parts they bought in good faith from another manufacturer.

When I worked for the biggest appliance manufacturer on the planet, learned a lot about how the consumer is looked at. If our washers and dryers lasted 5 years, it was a miracle of God. Funny thing is people would get upset, and tell us what brand they were going to buy next. Did not matter, all of the internals and electronics were bought from the same company in China by every appliance manufacturer world wide.

No mystery as to why all the auto makes have very similar failures on so many parts.

Agree, take care of what you have, be realistic in your expectations, and try to enjoy it rather than always worrying about when it will break.

Grumpy Bear · August 20, 2021

26 minutes ago, JimCost2014 said:

If Ford would have kept making almost all of their parts, and not relying on outsourcing parts like every manufacture (almost) in the world now, would they still be around?

I'll tell you as soon as you tell me how one proves a negative.

I hesitate to say, "Your right Jim" (about the provable parts of your reply) because such agreement says nothing good about humanity. And yet here I am.

You state that the company hasn't any recourse for a supplier sending them junk? Because EVERYONE sends junk to everyone else? So I'm guessing calling your supplier on the carpet and refusing to pay the invoice is no longer viable because there is no second choice to be made. In other words you saying that the economic vote is no longer in play.

Oh this may be true. I know personally of a company using defective parts because there is no second source. They've also been sold more times than mice have cubs trying to avoiding bankruptcy. See this knife does cut both ways.

Now why is that true?

These guys are:

:idiot:

JimCost2014 · August 20, 2021

3 minutes ago, Grumpy Bear said:

calling your supplier on the carpet and refusing to pay the invoice is no longer viable because there is no second choice to be made. In other words you saying that the economic vote is no longer in play.

That is a great point, and I completely agree with what you have said, but there a lot of trucks and cars sitting everywhere waiting for the computer chips so they can be finished right now.

The meek will never inherit the earth, our car broke down on the way to the rally

Grumpy Bear · August 20, 2021

1 minute ago, JimCost2014 said:

That is a great point, and I completely agree with what you have said, but there a lot of trucks and cars sitting everywhere waiting for the computer chips so they can be finished right now.

Well we asked for it and now we are complaining that we got what we asked for.

1 minute ago, JimCost2014 said:

The meek will never inherit the earth, our car broke down on the way to the rally

You ever look up when you say something like that?

:crackup:

Grumpy Bear · August 20, 2021

This fits so many threads

Grumpy Bear · August 21, 2021

17 hours ago, JimCost2014 said:

There are so many variables why that could not even happen unfortunately.

Most of those variables lie with the end user. Not the producer and that is good for the OEM. You are making my point for me.

They don't need to put holes in the inner fender liners (vents? Yea, right) in Dodge pickups to pack salt into a space nearly impossible for Joe Average to clean out. The previous generations did not have them and lasted much longer. No need to abandon coatings that are rust preventative.

No need to design a motor vent system that freezes killing rings and motors in 80-100K either. GM Ecotec I4's. Then not correcting it when it is causing the OEM issues? We already have the tech and have for decades to vent a motor properly.

First calculator I ever saw was $600 and made by Texas Instrument. You can buy one with the SAME features the original had in the beginning for $1 at any Dollar General. A few of them have enough processing power to run everything in a car. But the story is?????

Motor tech has come so far our grandfathers would not recognize them anymore as familiar. If Honda can build a motor capable of a hundred horses per liter and make it live with poor maintenance a half million miles ON THE CHEAP, what is GM's excuse?

There was a chapter in How to Hotrod Small Block Chevy's by Peterson Publications decades ago that told the story of GM's development of the Mouse Motor. 150% overload for millions of cycles was the GOAL for the rods and the end product was realized in the lightest strongest rod package ever built for a production motor. GM engineers are not incapable, their bosses are just greedy in a stupid sort of way.

Oh the tech is there but these guys are so short sighted in every aspect that they toss fortunes away for instant gratification and board member approval while killing their futures and those of the planet. How short sighted? The next physical quarter. Sometimes the end of business today.

“It does not belong to man who is walking even to direct his step.” Jeremiah 10:23

Z45 · August 22, 2021

A quote I recall from a synopsis of a book by Bob Lutz (as I recall) below called "Car Guys vs. Bean Counters".

Quote

OEM philosophy is to treat the customer as a hapless victim to be exploited. Bob Lutz

I also recall part in which he describes when he went to work for Ford as head of Europe operations. They had a Escort engine that was notorious for poor quality and always after after the warranty expired. So he set about to improve quality and did resulting in less customer problems. But corp came down on him because by improving quality he cost the company millions of $$ in lost parts profits. He only lasted for 3 yrs in that job.