Chevrolet Lumina VX SS

[slippery]

My Lumina has been off the road with an automatic gearbox failure since July 2004. It's a long story but as usual the only winners so far are the lawyers. The gearbox has failed and been rebuilt under warranty 3 times, so when it failed for the fourth time at 10 months old, enough was enough. I am rejecting the car under the sale of goods act, but the garage are claiming my mileage of 28000 within 10 months was excessive use and contributed to the failure. The also say that my car is virtually identical to an HSV GTS and that the price I paid for it (£22000), meant I got I bargain compared to the £40000 plus I should have paid. How can I prove my car is not the same as the HSV (I wish!) and is in fact a rebadged version of the poorer relative, meaning my car was not virtually half price? They are also saying that it was GM that imported the HSV, but this isn't true either. Any experts out there that might be able to help? I loved my car, it wasn't meant to be like this!!!

[ringram]

I dont think you need to prove anything, as you say they are talking crap. A phone call to Holden in Australia will soon put paid to that. You basically have either the South African or Middle Eastern equivalent to the Holden Commodore SS which has the standard LS1. Quite what HSV has to do with failed transmissions is lost on me in any case even if it was an HSV, which is certainly isnt. Whats your VIN number? It should be 6H8VX then a letter HSV's are K, X or L someone on www.ls1.com.au should be able to tell you what the SS and SV8 are so you can definitively see what you have.

Rich

[Raggyman]

Where did you buy it from? Be supprised if GM here in the UK would support it. Also supprised that length of the warranty. Mine was 3 yrs or 100,000km.

Not sure, but I know monkfish have a new autobox, but not sure if they are the same as the V6, but worth checking out. Was kind of hoping to be the only one, just in case mine dies.

[skinnyboy]

The later model Commo's had problems with piston slap too in their canadian built engines. I work on commo's all the time and frankly their shocking build quality astounds me! The old agricultural slushbox is a disgrace too. Sounds like your problem is just one of the many quirks of Aussie "friday" built cars.

[slippery]

I bought the car from an importer based in Essex. It was registered brand new in 2003 but was actually built late 2001. They gave me a 12 month warranty and a mechanical breakdown insurance policy. They are now saying the warranty is with the warranty company and not them. GM obviously won't touch it which is fair enough, but in this situation, the liability should be with the retailer. The law should be on my side but you know what these courts can be like. They are fighting me every step of the way and are very wealthy.

[ringram]

Hey bud, you might want to get yourself a new service agent and take a look at this http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dl
Might save you a penny with rebuilds, just noticed this today.

[slippery]

Looks good, but after spending over £5000 so far in legals etc., I don't really feel like adding a new box to my list of costs. From what I have been told, a rebuild is a botched repair and the whole gearbox should have been replaced in the first place. Saying that, if a faulty engine management system caused the fault, who's to say the same thing wouldn't happen to a new box? I'll be going Network Q when I finally get this muddle sorted!

[V-Car]

Rather than them saying you got the car cheap compared to a HSV GTS, tell them that it was expensive, and that you paid a premium for the SS over the price of a base model Commodore Executive taxi which is what it basically is, and over $10,000 less in Australia than an equivalent SS.

[raggyman]

Hey easy on the commodore executive taxi.. OK, yeah, i want those extra two cylinders.

[sjc]

Slippery, the price you paid for it in relation to any other model is totally irelevant,they are talking My concern is that after all this time it may be difficult to reject the car. However if you pop over to the Noble forum and E.mail a guy called Joust via his profile, he maybe be able to advise a bit, as he seems quite wised up on these matters.Did you have any luck with Auto-transmissions in Hornchurch, think I may have given you their details before? (Martin and Andy,Martin has a GTS)One other contact on here may be Stu Harris, he is not directly involved in these matters but may be able to point you in the right direction.
Good Luck

[eliot]

What actually goes wrong with the box? - Dont suppose it looses 3rd (and as a result 4th) by any chance ?

[slippery]

I know it seems like a long time ago now, but I actually rejected the car 18 months ago when it was 10 months old. I didn't really want to go down this route but the alternative was to let them do a fourth repair for an identical fault, then have it fail on me again 2 months later when the warrant ran out. Spoke to the guy in Hornchurch. He knew his stuff but it's kind of beyond that now. He knew the people the garage sub contracted the repairs to though. Apparently they are known within the trade as 'bring em back Bob'! Basically, every time the fault occurs, it exhibits slipping clutch type symptoms in fourth gear, then third, then loses all drive from those two gears completely. They have said in their witness statements that the failure must be the result of me driving aggresively. Most of my 28000 miles were motorway miles. You just can't believe how much something like this can drain you! Part of being able to reject the car after a period of time such as this is to prove that it is not sufficiently durable or that the fault was inherent within the build of the vehicle. Common sense says that should be easy, but since when has the legal system applied common sense. I just hope the judge is a Commodore fan but I think I might be clutching at straws there somehow!!

[raggyman]

Good luck either way. Very weird that there is a problem like that after a that sort of mileage though. Normally you get about 250,000km out of the auto before you have to get it rebuilt. My last one did 300,000km so i did pretty good and got an extra bit out of it. Mind you it was really on it's last legs.

Well, if you don't have any success, Rodger at Monkfish has a Auto box, but it might give you piece of mind rather than getting it rebuilt. Maybe get them to pay for the new box, who knows.

[eliot]

slippery said:

it exhibits slipping clutch type symptoms in fourth gear, then third, then loses all drive from those two gears completely.

3-4 clutch pack failure. Most common failure on the 700r4/4l60e - Just rebuilt mine, after toasting 3-4 pack (which was an aftermarket so called power pack) - now on yet another design of 3-4 pack thats supposed to stand up better.

[slippery]

What causes the failure Eliot? I was also told that the parts that had been replaced were uprated but it made no difference. If I could get hold of any written reports relating to this kind of problem they could be useful.

>> Edited by slippery on Monday 31st October 18:53

[eliot]

Standard clutch pack has 6 plates and steels. There are various upgrades for them, one of the more popular is the Red Eagle 9 plate "power pack" that contained...wait for it...9 plates.. To get those plates and steels in the same housing, they made them thinner. Problem is that those thin plates don’t soak up heat very well and end up overheating and warping.

So the latest thinking is to use 8 plates using full thickness steels. This is what Ive just put into my rebuild. (Amongst many other parts)

Ive been told that Red Eagle will drop the 9 plate power pack in favour of the 8 plate stackup. I can’t actually tell you if the 8 plate is any good, as ive only done a couple hundred miles on it so far. My case is extreme (lots of power & weight) but 3-4 failure is common.

Here's my powerpack after only 700 miles:

Saying its been "upgraded" is meaningless unless you know the exact parts used.
There is also a 2-4 band (guess which two gears that’s applied on!) - there are various upgrades for this too, including fitting a wider band made from kevlar, but that’s come full circle also, I was recommended to use a std width band, but made from carbon this time!

Whole sorry tale of woe and what ive learned about the boxes is here:
www.mez.co.uk/Chevy700r4pg3.html
4l60e is just electronic version of 700r4, mechanicals are same.

>> Edited by eliot on Monday 31st October 20:34

[ringram]

I believe you can also replace or mill out the housing to allow fitting more plates. But yes more is better. Though a stock trans should last as long as you arnt hitting the rev limit then dropping it in gear. Mind you the stock PCM has many settings to reduce "abuse" so that its not damaged too much.