I'm new to the forum and wanted to see if this had happened to anyone else. Our 89 SE's (over 268k) transmission quit about 2 weeks ago. It didn't slip, smoke, lose gears or give any indication of trouble. One minute we were driving it down the road, the next, no gears at all.
It's currently sitting on our mechanic's lot. He feels it may be some sort of aluminum/steel shaft?? and if so that won't be too expensive. But if not then a total rebuild will be in order.
We planned to replace the car in the Spring so just moved it up a little. However we've owned this car since it was new and could possibly pass it on to a family member if the repair wasn't too costly for them.
I read through the threads and everything tranmission related seem to have warning signs. Appreciate your thoughts.
P.S. That's 268K on the original engine and transmission, no rebuild!

 

It's hard to say what's wrong, but that kind of mileage is great. How often did you service the transmission?

 

IS IT AN AUTO OR 5SPD

kinda hard to diagnose a problem with so little info

 

All 89-91 SEs were 5-speed, but you knew that.....

 

wanna bet?

 

Your joking right?

 

Its an automatic. We've never had any problems with it and our mechanic does kind of a general once over anytime he's changing the oil, fixing the little gadgets that break, etc.
As far as servicing the tranmission, probably never. That is if you mean having someone get into it in the kind of $26.95 service transmission shops offer. I worked in the office of a transmission shop once and their advice was not to do it since you don't want people in your sealed transmission unnecessarily. Right or wrong, that advice has stuck with me.
And just FYI, we change the oil approximately every 3000 miles. Doesn't have anything to do with the transmission but I believe its part of the reason the engine still runs strong.
My hope is that someone shouts "Eureka" when they see this problem and its just a matter of a $10 part and something that slipped off. What a dreamer.

 

268K Miles on the original tranny fluid....yikes. Thats the way I read it anyway...

 

wierd my friends 91 se is an auto =(

 

that is the exact same thing that happened to me in my 90 gxe. cross some railroad tracks and went to press the throttle again... barely moved at all. creeped up the hill to a parking lot where i had to get it towed.

1800 dollars later it was driveable. tranny guy said that the first and second gears tend to break quite often which i guess is what turned out to be the problem. it most likely won't be a cheap fix.

 

 

yeah i already knew that


oh man you never changed the trans fliud in 268k wow thats your 2000$ mistak but dont feel bad you got about 100k more than most members

 

Really, I'm not sure you could expect the tranny to go much further than this one went, whether the fluid was changed or not...268K is a lot of miles!

I've also heard that once a tranny has lots of miles on it, it's better not to change the fluid...many times will accelerate the decline!

 

I think I probably exaggerated our "lack" of maintenance. Keeping up over 14 years with all the things we've done is difficult but I'm sure the fluid was changed somewhere along the line. However what we didn't have done is where they "drop the pan" (I am so not mechanical) and tinker with it even when its running well as a maintenance item.
We've blessed the car every day it continued running for a long time. It has been wonderful.

And the reason I was asking the question anyway was how it didn't break in the usual fashion - slipping, losing a gear at a time, etc. It all went at once, no forward gears, no reverse. Running down the road in drive, then it quit completely. I've experienced (in an 83 S10 blazer), the losing a gear at a time so I'm familiar, this isn't it.

Thanks for all the replies so far.

 

JBD, it is going to require a rebuild. 268K on orginal transmission is outstanding; however, time and milage has caught up with you. Expect to pay around $1800.00.