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Old October 6th 04, 05:34 PM
2000SaturnSL2
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Although I have always repaired all manual transmissions I have owned, I
did not have the time (or inclination) to play with teaching myself how to
service an automatic transmission. After four days, I parked the Saturn
and started driving a backup car I have in order to prevent further
possible damage to the Saturn.
I spent a week getting repair quotes from various transmission repair
shops. This was an experience in and of itself.

One major chain shop offered a free diagnosis service. The diagnosis
determined there was some internal problem with the transmission, but the
transmission would need to be removed and opened up to determine the exact
problem. They quoted $510 (6 hours X $85/hr) to remove, inspect, and
reinstall the transmission. Any repairs would be additional to the $510,
and could go as high as $1500. The cost would also depend on what “grade”
of warranty you wanted (1year/12000mile, 3year/36000mile, etc.).

Another major chain wanted $49.99 just to diagnose my transmission, with
that amount going toward the repair total if I had them do the repairs. I
said no thanks.

A Saturn dealership repair shop wanted $85 to diagnose the transmission,
with that amount going toward the repair total if I had the dealership do
the repairs. I said no thanks to Saturn.

I checked out two family-owned transmission repair shops in my town. One
wanted $2400 to do a rebuild, gave a 1year/12000mile warranty, and wanted
the car five workdays. The other wanted $1700 to do a rebuild, gave a
1year/unlimited-mileage warranty, and wanted the car three workdays.
Since I drive the Saturn about 25,000 miles a year, I went with the second
shop.

The work was done in two and a half days. The mechanic found the cause of
my troubles was a nut that had loosened on the back of the main shaft.
This allowed enough play to where reverse gear would eventually not mesh.
He also said the Saturn transmission uses a right-hand thread on this nut,
which is the same direction the shaft rotates. He said the Honda
transmission (the only other non-planetary) uses a left-hand thread on the
nut with a right-hand shaft rotation. It is possible that rotational
inertia of the Saturn right-handed nut causes it to loosen in certain
circumstances, such as an abrupt increase in RPM when accelerating hard.
My mechanic addressed this problem by securing the nut with Locktite when
he torqued the nut on the shaft.

After I got the Saturn back, the transmission would jerk a bit whenever
upshifting and downshifting between first and second gear during the first
twenty miles of use. Then the shifting smoothed out to normal and has been
working fine since—about two weeks now. I asked the repair shop about this
and they said the powertrain computer need to “relearn” the shifting, as
well as my driving habits.

By the way, do not expect any shop to repair an automatic transmission and
give a useful warranty. All shops I spoke with recommended rebuilding, not
repairing, an automatic that has over 100k miles on it. All shops I spoke
with would not give any warranty on a “repair-only” job since a seal,
clutch, or some other part could fail anytime after the repair.


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