UPDATE: Transmission and Synthetic fluid

[BlitzPuppet]

They took my tranny apart....needs a rebuild :( Apparently the PCM was telling the tranny to do things it shouldn't have done, and it burned up...so they said the whole transmission needs a complete overhaul. Plus on top of that I need to get another PCM replace my bad one. And the total price......$2600. I don't know what to do, I might just have to get rid of my car cause this is the 2nd time it's been rebuilt in 5 years, and it has 114K miles..... :( . Blah

[95Batmobile]

*coughcoughripoffcoughcough*

$2000 at the most...
To rebuild our tranny should be 1500-1600 at the most... I thought my tranny was slipping so I looked into prices... I don't know what the hell else they're doing to it for the price to be that high... and you can buy a PCM on ebay or some crap for cheap (under $100 easy) and send it to fastchip to have him program it for $300! You are getting a performance mod and a new tranny for cheaper...

[PewterBird]

You might just want to replace it with a used one, cause I have seem them with like 30K for like $300. You might only get as little as another 20k on the replacement, but for around a few hundred bucks, you can' beat it.

[Guardsman]

You can get a remanned transmission from GM for $2000 (not that I advise it).

For $2600, that better be one hell of a rebuild, and better include the removal, installation, and any incidentals, i.e., $2600 better be out the door, or you're getting ripped off.

I replaced major hard parts (input drum, low/reverse and reaction planets, reaction shell, sun gear, input sprag, and solenoids) and the frictions, and that cost me $1500, labor would have been another $1000 (it was rebuilt under warranty, not the tranny shop's fault, though).

So, that would've been $2500, plus removal/install, for what amounts to a new (well-improved) transmission.

For a basic rebuild, you should be paying around $1500, at most, plus removal/installation, if you don't do that yourself.

Also, if you're going to use synthetic fluid with your transmission, AND YOU HAVE A SHIFT KIT (IMPORTANT) use a Type F synthetic, with a bit of Dexron III synthetic, about a 3:1 ration of Type F to Dexron III.

I was getting some slippage after my first rebuild, using Redline D4 ATF. During the second rebuild (the tranny fluid wasn't the cause of the failure), I talked to the engineer at Redline, and my tranny builder, and after talking about some of the issues I had seen, and some of the properties of the synthetic fluid, we agreed that the Type F (Redline Racing ATF) was the way to go.

Long story short, Dexron III (Which is Redline D4) has friction modifiers, which basically makes the fluid more slippery. GM transmissions are designed to slip between gears, to make a softer shift, and the friction modifiers allow the slip without tearing the friction materials up as fast.

When you go to a shift kit, you get rid of that slip. However, with the Dexron III, the fluid still allows the slip, which will end up burning clutches up, and allow slippage in general.

The Type F has no friction modifiers, so it won't allow the slippage, which is what you want with a shift kit.

There's the short story.