09 Malibu spun a bearing. (Page 2/2)
Khw DEC 31, 01:41 AM
It's been a year but... He had me pull the engine and trans out. I've never tore down an automatic transmission and told him I wasn't confident enough that I could do it with someone else's money at risk. His brother in-law has done that kind of thing so they sent the trans home with him to crack open the case and repair it. A year later he tells them that cost and time to repair it they might as well get a "new" one from GM for the 2 grand price tag. They went ahead and sprung for the GM trans. A week ago he dropped it off up at their house and I've been going up when I can to get it back in the car. I mean, the engine was on my stand and all so...

I got it all back in and buttoned up today but I have a bit of a hang-up. Car starts and runs great again however it keeps throwing codes and the trans isn't responding like it's supposed to. The codes boil down as best I can tell to the TCM not communicating with the ECM and vice versa. I do some checking around and run across a couple of sources saying that the TCM in the new trans needs to be programmed with a GM Tech 2 scan tool for the VIN of the car it's in otherwise the ECM and TCM won't connect with each other. Has anyone ran into this kind of thing before? It's a Ecotec 2.4lL with 6 spd automatic trans. I'm just wondering if I'm going to have to have it towed to a shop that can do that for them.

For fun, since I haven't posted any in awhile, here's a few pic's of some of the landscaping I did over the summer around the house up there. I've been working on that while they had a few crews come through and get it to drywall.








And a view from the back yard.

[This message has been edited by Khw (edited 12-31-2016).]

Patrick DEC 31, 02:48 AM

Are you expecting mortar fire? Heh heh... looks good.
Khw JAN 16, 01:55 AM

quote
Originally posted by Patrick:


Are you expecting mortar fire? Heh heh... looks good.



Thank you Patrick .

Well, a bit over a week of calling the Chevy dealer where the transmission was purchased and the service center hadn't returned any of my calls. I guess if you put the trans in yourself the service center doesn't want anything to do with it? Ridiculous really to sell a trans that requires programming to the vehicles vin and not tell the customer it will need to be done. But then to top that and not be bothered to return calls to get it done? I guess it's a "Here is you $2000.00 paper weight" thing. Luckily the Richard, the guy who sold the part was able to confirm the need to program the trans to the vehicles vin. He also owns his own tech 2 scanner and is coming to the owners home tomorrow to program it. I liked our 02 Bonneville a lot but after this, I don't know if I would ever want to buy another GM vehicle. It's not bad enough that the trans doesn't have a dip stick so you can't check the fluid level but then to require programming just to get different parts to talk to each other? I see on this car the progression towards making it more and more difficult/expensive for owners to do their own maintenance and repairs. /sigh