Transmission Failure problems of the 2002 Chevrolet Tahoe

I have had my chevy Tahoe for just over 2-1/2 years. During this time, my transmission has failed twice. The same part also broke prior to my owning the vehicle. Three times the same part has failed yet my vehicle has little over 55,000 miles on it. It had approximately 40,000 the last time it was repaired. I have sought assistance from gm to get the transmission fixed but was flat denied any type of support. I feel this is a problem with their transmission that should be addressed by gm, not the unsuspecting owner.

I had a maintenance service performed on my 2002 chevy Tahoe at the carl Chevrolet dealership in san jose, CA. A minor transmission service was included with this service. They replaced the filter, performed a visual inspection of the transmission and replaced 4. 5 quarts of transmission fluid that was removed for filter replacement. I picked-up my SUV and drove it home. There was a slight delay in shifting, but this was only noticeable intermittently. The next day, I was leaving on a family camping trip and my transmission went out approximately 1/4 of a mile from home. We were making a right turn and I heard a loud "clunk" which was followed by a spinning or high rpm winding sound. Since we were about to start down a steep hill, I tried to turn around. As I was in the process of making a y-turn, I put the car into reverse. I had lost my reverse gear, so I was unable to complete the turn. This left my car stranded in the lane of oncoming traffic. Fearing for my families safety,I put the car into neutral and pushed the car forward into a driveway to prevent blocking the lane. I had my Tahoe towed back to the carl Chevrolet dealership. The transmission tech stated that the sun shell gear had worn out and caused the transmission to fail. He also stated that there was no connection between the previous day's service and the transmission failure the following day. The service manager stated that this is a common problem with the 4l60e transmissions that are standard equipment in the Tahoes. The transmission tech also stated that the Chevrolet distributed a technical bulletin within the company advising the mechanics that the sun shell gear was faulty due to a lack of proper heat treating. Chevy has been aware of this problem since the year 2000. I asked chevy customer service for financial assistance and they offered to pay 10% of the bill. My family was put at risk due to this known part defect in the transmission.

I purchased a used 2002 chevy Tahoe from grand auto, northglenn CO, at the end of may 2005. I drove the car for 4 months, putting on ~11,000 miles. On oct 16, 2005 I was headed to dinner with two other people in the car. I turned right on to 95th st heading south. There were cars coming behind me, but there was plenty of room for a proper acceleration to cruising speed without in-convincing the other drivers. As I accelerated through first gear, all was fine, then the car tried to shift into second gear. As it tried, there was a popping sound, the motor rpms increased to red-line, and there was a squealing sound. I let off the accelerator, and tried to get over out of traffic to see what happened. Luckily there was enough shoulder and enough time to get out of traffic and try to figure out what the problem was. As it turned out, the transmission had lost 2nd gear, 4th gear, and reverse, leaving the vehicle close to useless, and unsafe to drive. While I was able to safely exit traffic, no all may be so lucky. If you pull out into traffic, or try to cross traffic and the transmission fails, losing 3 of 5 gears, you could easily have disastrous consequences. After getting home and researching this problem I found that this is covered in a gm TSB, 00-07-30-022 Nov 00 a/t. I also found many stories of this failure mode, indicating that this is not an isolated incidence, nor is this a one in a million failure mode. I believe this problem should be re-classified from a TSB to a recall, because of the probable safety issues.

The consumer was unable to place the vehicle in reverse. The dealership informed the consumer that the transmission failed.

Consumer stated transmission failed three times. . First year that consumer had the vehicle he had to replace transmission. Then, exactly one year later the same thing happened. Currently, transmission failed again. When consumer stopped at a traffic light vehicle moved a little and started to shake. Finally, it stopped doing anything. Consumer felt he purchased a lemon.

Transmission failed. Part has been repaired three times; however, problem still exists.