Three problems related to automatic transmission have been reported for the 1998 Oldsmobile Bravada. The most recently reported issues are listed below.
Automatic transmission skips in lower gears, causing vehicle to lurch forward. "service needed" light is illuminated. Dealer indicates that due to a milling error in the transmission, casing, transmission will need to be replaced soon at a minimum cost of $2500. Current odometer reading is 120,000. I feel the subcontractor for the milled casing should be required to replace the transmission at their cost.
Check engine light comes on and there is a hard shift from 1st to 2nd and sometimes a somewhat hard one from 2nd to 3rd. This only happens after vehicle has been running for about an hour and will continue to happen until you let it cool down. Many Bravada owners reporting same occurrences.
The service engine light comes on and 6 different transmissions trouble codes are set in the computer causing the transmission to go into a default mode that causes it not to have a first gear or high gear. The electrical dash gauges moy or may not work at times and the key may or may not come out of the switch when you try and shut the car off. I checked with a gm dealer and talked to the mechanic and as soon as I showed him the trouble codes and the number of times they had came up he told me what the problem was as he had seen it on many other gm cars before.