I have a car. I have no idea if it's a 94, or a 95, or anything. It was sold as a 94, but it says 95 on the sticker on the door. Automatic tranny. Here's the problem:

I've been through 8 rebuilds since I bought the car in October/November of 2003. The first 4 rebuilds were the tranny that came in the car (when I bought it). The 5th, 6th, and 7th were using a different transmission, and the 8th was using a third tranny. The first 2 burned up the 3rd and 4th bands and clutches and all that good stuff. Every time. I'm not going to drive this third one, because I know it's going to do it again. The ABS INOP light is always on, ever since I bought the car. The transmission guy seems to think that maybe something with that brake light is not engaging/disengaging, and eating up the clutch.

I don't know what to do. I know the car has been in a wreck, because it's a used engine, the wheels are all pushed to the passenger side about an inch, the sticker on the door... I don't want to pay someone 65 bucks an hour to find a short in the wires. Do you think it would be cheaper just to buy all the wiring harnesses and put it in myself, or just set the car on fire and go get another one?

 

did the same person rebuild it and do the work to your car everytime????

 

Yeah, they did. It was the same shop. And even though I'll never take my car back to them, I still don't think that the 7 or 8 guys that work there are THAT stupid to let my car burn up 8 times. If that was the case, they'd never have business. I'm pretty sure it's not the mechanic this time.

 

just seems odd that a "good" shop would take 8 times and not even fix the root cause of the problem, idk what the deal is, hopefully one of the really good tranny guys on here will see this post

 

They have no idea what's causing it to do that. And the only reason they did it 8 times was because they know my grandparents real well. But anyway, yeah, I hope someone can help me. I don't want to get rid of the car, but I'm sure I'm going to have to.

 

I have a pal that had his 4L60e rebuilt 6 times at a "good" very highly respected race trans shop. The only thing is that they didn't know all of the quirks and little things to look for in a modern overdrive trans.
So he bought a manual, a video, and spent countless hours on the internet and phone researching the problems.
Bought the new hard parts and tore into his tranny. Well he found a half a dozen little things that had been over looked or just not assembled perfectly.
Put it all together and took it to the track 3 or 4 times and drove it 'till snow fell with no problems at all.
A shop can be great at th400s, th350s, and glides and still not have the knowledge to get a 4l60e/700r4 right.
There are guys that can do it right.

 

Well then let's assume that this shop knows what they're doing. Heheh, this seems to be going nowhere.

 

Curious, did you pay each time? If not, then I suspect I know what they did? Same thing happened to me. Transmission went out, torque convertor was shot, so was 1st and 2nd. Payed $1800 to have it rebuilt completely with stronger clutches and bands and a new torque convertor. 2 weeks after I get it back, 3rd and 4th go. They tell me to bring it back, and they fix it, no questions asked. A month later, 1st and 2nd again. They fix it again, remember its free each time. I went back and forth with 3rd and 4th another 3 times and they kept fixing it for free. They even changed it to vaccumm operated, or something. After that mess, I hate autos. After the last time it went out I put in a manual and havent had a problem since. I strongly feel that transmission shops dont actually fix them completely each time, instead choosing to try and fix the individual problem with the trans. I dont see why its so hard to make a 4l60e last when a 700r4 is cake. Then again, that same shop did a 700 for a friend of mine and he had the same problems.

 

Well no, I didn't pay each time. It was under a warranty that I no longer have. But mine didn't even last 2 weeks. It lasted anywhere from 3 to 5 days. One time it lasted about 20 miles.

 

Do you know if there flushing out your tranny lines each time they rebuild, or just hooking it right back up to the tranny when their done? When stuff burns up, all that crap has to go somewhere. And if they don't get everything completly clean, including the torque converter (like if they used the current converter at any point), all that crap gets cycled right back through your nice new tranny and screws it all up. Your then asking for failure. Just some input. Good luck.

Ken R. 95Z