damn crooks

Kohburn · Post by **Kohburn** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 9:57 am

ok I'm on the verge of a meltdown - someone help pull me back formt he brink.

bought this 2000 GTP about 6 weeks ago. int he drive home from new years (about 2 hours) the transmission suddenly starts acting up.

symptoms:

driving is fine except slightly noisier than usual
coming to a stop the car stutters and shakes as it feels like it pops out of gear (lock up solenoid?)
getting moving again it acts almost like its in neutral (belt slipping?) then slamms into gear and moves normally and shifts through gears normally
putting it in park or neutral it made a fairly loud noise like something was rubbing.

next morning i go to start the car to take it to a trany shop and its not slamming into or out of gear like before, and the noise in park is almost inaudible.

tranny fluid was 4-5 quarts over full.. maybe the long drive made it cavitate and make an air bubble. ?

what are the chances that the stealership overfilled the fluid to cover up an existing tranny problem?

whipped · Post by **whipped** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 10:07 am

I've heard bad things happen when you overfill the transmission. Likely the person didn't know you had to check the fluid when in park and running.

I would remove the excess fluid and just keep driving it.

A highly uneducated guess would be a torque converter problem - like a stator/turbine fin came loose or something.

Overfilling it won't cover up any problems, besides leaks, so it's safe to assume they're just inept

Kohburn · Post by **Kohburn** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 10:42 am

however selling me a car that is overfilled and that causinf the tranny to fail 2 weeks after their warranty is up is pretty shady

stimpy · Post by **stimpy** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 2:10 pm

I went through some fluid level horrors with my trans until I got my WCF "modified"

dipstick tube replaced. Just a couple of ounce off on the level can make it hard to drive, so I can't imagine it being that over-filled. They must have topped it off. Dorks.

product1620 · Post by **product1620** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 5:59 pm

Damn the rental car place I work at has a Dodge Neon that does the same thing but only seems to do it when cold, I didn't know a little bit too much or too little fluid would make that much of a difference.

Kohburn · Post by **Kohburn** » Thu Jan 04, 2007 7:24 pm

well i went at it with a gallon jug and a hand pump syphoning off fluid through the tube while it ran. confirmed aeration of the fluid. i got about 1.5 quarts out and only dropped an inch on the dipstick. still 2 inches left. hand pump stopped working from the heat of the fluid.

Mach10 · Post by **Mach10** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 10:55 am

Aeration of tranny fluid will cause all kinds of butt-fuckery in what basically amounts to a huge hydraulic pump.

What *I'D* do is drain the transmission pan completely--but I'm not sure if that particular tranny has a drain plug or not.

Refill while running-- but understand that it'll take a while to work all the froth out.

If you're really rabid, you can try Ogre's method of tranny-flushing, which is to disconnect the outlet line on the trans cooler and run a hose into a catchcan. As long as the tranny is in park, the revs are kept at idle, and you kill the motor when fluid stops spurting out, you shouldn't damage anything internally. Filling a "dry" automatic can be a fucking pain, though. Go quart-by quart, into each range until the level starts to come up.

The bad news is that depending how long you've been pushing foam, it could have burnt out any number of bits inside that transmission. Remember that the clutchpacks and brakebands are all hydraulically actuated. Any slippage will wear things out double-quick.

That said, if the fluid coming out is normal in color (bright red through to dark red) and doesn't reek of burnt plastic (it's the only thing I can think of that comes remotely close to burning automatic transmission!) you're probably ok.

Kohburn · Post by **Kohburn** » Fri Jan 05, 2007 12:16 pm

i did smell burned plastic on the long drive home when it first started acting up..

not really any since.. however that is my concern that it now needs a rebuild to be reliable

actually got a responce from the dealer. they will treat it as if it was still under warranty and want me to bring it over for them to look at.

Kohburn · Post by **Kohburn** » Mon Jan 08, 2007 9:40 am

trans is toast - its slipping badly and threw a code..

looks like i'll be getting a new trans - the question is will the dealer cover it all as they should.

Kohburn · Post by **Kohburn** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 2:50 pm

ok so now they don't want to cover anything but the labor to replace it and they want me to pay 2200 for the tranny

i've got calls in to a few specialized tranny shops that confirm it can hold the extra 4.5 quarts that were in it, and that that will cause it to foam, which can cause it to slip.

also going to get quotes from them to rebuild it. starting to feel like i'll be paying to get it done and have my lawyer send a bill to the dealer.

Mach10 · Post by **Mach10** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 5:26 pm

Have you tried having the tranny flushed out (either by you or someone else)?

You can wreck an auto pretty quickly if it's being abused, but it's usually accompanied by some pretty terrible smells, and the tranny fluid will be almost shit-brown.

Check it before dropping that kind of money/time/effort.

Kohburn · Post by **Kohburn** » Wed Jan 10, 2007 11:01 pm

Mach10 wrote:Have you tried having the tranny flushed out (either by you or someone else)?

You can wreck an auto pretty quickly if it's being abused, but it's usually accompanied by some pretty terrible smells, and the tranny fluid will be almost shit-brown.

Check it before dropping that kind of money/time/effort.

they drained it and replaced filter when i took it in for being 4.5 quarts over full. 1 day later its slipping like crazy

Mach10 · Post by **Mach10** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 11:41 am

RIP transmission... :sad2:

cactus bastard · Post by **cactus bastard** » Thu Jan 11, 2007 11:47 am

That's an awesome headstone btw...