Another Silverado Scenario

I didn’t want to hijack Netguy’s thread.
I have a 5.3 2014 Silverado. At 130k miles the afm blew up the engine. I dropped $10k on a reman motor. Ive put 60k miles on the new motor. Recently Ive felt the transmission slipping. Im at an inevitable crossroads. Ive taken meticulous care of this truck and my mechanic is top notch. My question is, would you pay $5,500 for a reman tranny and torque converter or sell it as is and drop serious coin on new truck?

$5500 would not get you a good reman IMO. I paid nearly $8k for my wifes. I would send the truck down the road IMO.

Bye bye chevy and hello anything other then gm. They have far but proven them selves to be quality.

So your at 190k miles? I would move on.

That’s a decision only you can make. New trucks are a lot more than $5,500 ( that’s a good price but the way, most are guys are paying $6-6,50).
You did really well getting 190,000 on that transmission. Most barely make it 90,000.

CaptainMusky wrote:

$5500 would not get you a good reman IMO. I paid nearly $8k for my wifes. I would send the truck down the road IMO.

For a 1/2 ton? You paid too much

Bearcat89 wrote:

Bye bye chevy and hello anything other then gm. They have far but proven them selves to be quality.

I’ll second this, and I was a guy who grew up driving GMs and loved the late 90s through early 00s GM trucks/suburbans. GM is now both behind the competition and less reliable…which is a brutal combination

grubson wrote:

For a 1/2 ton? You paid too much

Well this was over a year ago and for a Denali with the billet torque converter so not a direct replacement of what was in it. I could have gotten one for about 1100 or so cheaper had I not gone that route.

Have the existing transmission pulled, rebuilt and reinstalled. I don’t know exact figures, but Gordy down at Bayport Transmission will build it however you want with a warranty, and for less than the cost of installing an already rebuilt transmission. Sadly, Ken Schwartz and Performance Transmission in Maplewood have retired, but Gordy is top notch also. He just did a 700R4 for under $3k for a hot rod project.

I recently solved a similar problem by getting the hell away from the 5.3/ 6L80 nightmare.

Just got a nice used 2500, 6.6 L8T for a VERY reasonable price. Couldn’t believe the asking price of used 1500’s, all trim levels all makes and models just disgusting.

Unfortunately still a GM, and I hope I don’t have to remind myself again why I wanted out of GM, but the more I looked into L8T the more I like it. Big displacement, low tech (no AFM/ DFM parts at all), does far more than I need it to do. Wanted a ram 2500 but looking around for a few months I never found one at a palatable price point.

You do not have to buy new, lots of clean southern trucks with 60k on them way cheaper then new…….

troutbum wrote:

My question is, would you pay $5,500 for a reman tranny and torque converter or sell it as is and drop serious coin on new truck?

To me it would depend on how long would you feel you have to drive it to get your money’s worth out of that rebuilt transmission?

If you would be fine with an extra 30 or 40,000 miles then I’d say go for it. But if you think you have to put another 50 to 75,000 or even more miles on it to get your money’s worth I would say just move on. The chances are something else is going to go wrong with that truck in the interim and it’s going to become a money pit.

I was in a similar situation two years ago. GMC Acadia. 150,000 miles in the transmission blew. Spent 10k want to rebuilt transmission new differentials and other work that was needed. My feeling was that for $10,000 I’d be happy if I could get another 50,000 mi out of the vehicle. And I’m almost there with no other work done other than routine maintenance.

Now with this said I can assure you my next GM vehicle will be a Toyota or some other brand.

If you like the truck and it’s rust-free, 5500 isn’t bad for that job. I just paid more than that in May and ended up getting rid of the truck last week anyway.

If you go rebuild, suggest going with a better converter. The stock ones are junk, an improved converter from Sonnax or another reputable manufacturer would greatly extend the life of the rebuild and wouldn’t add much to that total cost.

I’m sure you’ve already made your decision, since you made this post 2 months ago. But, I’m bored.

If it were me, I would first ask, did you go with a 3 bolt cam and dump the AFM when you rebuilt the current motor? AFM on these(actually all) motors is a joke to be honest. It saves virtually no fuel and is just another thing to fail. I don’t care what your display says, but increasing a negligible 1-2mpg is not worth it in my case. If yes, then I would consider rebuilding the tranny. But, I would not go with a reman. I would talk to the many performance trans shops around the metro or online and go that route. You will likely end up saving money and rebuild the trans with better off the shelf components. Virtually every single shop that has built a 6L90E or 8L90 has access to HP Tuners and can adjust just about any settings needed if you’re even changing to a completely different trans housing.

That’s all I gotta say about that.

Fwiw when I bought my 15 yukon I hated the afm and weird shifting, bought a plug in tuner to strictly take away the afm and keep it 8 cylinders at all times, no other mods. Works great, with afm I was city around 15mpg, without afm just this week I looked at a 50mile report and it was over 19mpg, lil high but consistently over 17mpg city driving. SMH the truck gets better mpg without a fuel saving device….

Bearcat89 wrote:

Bye bye chevy and hello anything other then gm. They have far but proven them selves to be quality.

Motor Trend says different

http://www.motortrend.com/features/most-reliable-dependable-car-brands/

Funny timing on this thread. My transmission finally blew up on Monday on Hwy 36 at the light in rush hour.

New quote: $6k for a reman with billet TC

Or $6425 for a brand new one.

Im having the shop give me a quote for rebuild tomorrow morning.

When I had the reman motor installed they tuned the AFM b.s.

munchy wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Bearcat89 wrote:</div>
Bye bye chevy and hello anything other then gm. They have far but proven them selves to be quality.

Motor Trend says different

Having been around lots of work trucks and mechanics on the daily, I see real life examples of why to never own another gm.

X2 on the plug-in tuner. My 2010 and 2014 chevys both have them.

brandyman wrote:

X2 on the plug-in tuner. My 2010 and 2014 chevys both have them.

Yup, I have one in our burb and have had zero issues. A little over 200k note on it.

Bearcat89 wrote:

Having been around lots of work trucks and mechanics on the daily, I see real life examples of why to never own another gm.

LOL

https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Freel%2FC68lagmOI2L%2F&h=AT2RoGu-MfdlVjsPKjDaBCrEuKVVWAgEa4ZfiBHZE_FyHIdvv1Qduy2rh5VMB1aNx7gT6VYSyx4KnsFtKqkB9hE-hs68hgfJrdgaf_HnF3glJUUIduz6LLckwXGj3eI1riXfSy9t8NRVRx9LZQ&s=1

Just a note on AFM.

You no not need a tuner on most GM vehicles. You can simply put the vehicle in Manual Mode with the shift selector and it will not drop cylinders.

But, the thing is, the issues isn’t dropping cylinders. It’s the hydraulic lifters that collapse and fail, which trashes the cam. That can still happen even if you use a AFM plug, use HP Tunes(EFI Live) to deactivate or do what I mentioned. That’s why it is best to convert to a 3 bolt cam, because you will also replace the lifters as well.

If you’re going to spend $6K on a reman, I would just call Gearstar up and order one of their 6L80 or 6L90E trans. Not sure which one you have. They’ll only be another grand and will be bulletproof. Or just call them and tell them your situation and see if they can build one ala carte. There are other trans builders in the area as well.

Most of the problems with AFM are because people dont change the dang oil soon enough. The worst thing these companies have done is put an oil life monitor on there.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Most of the problems with AFM are because people dont change the dang oil soon enough. The worst thing these companies have done is put an oil life monitor on there.

That’s not exactly true, but it isn’t helpful. These valves drop even on motors that were religiously changed at 5k.

CaptainMusky wrote:

Most of the problems with AFM are because people dont change the dang oil soon enough. The worst thing these companies have done is put an oil life monitor on there.

I don’t fully agree with that. The lifters that GM uses has a lift cycle, it can only pump up and draw down so many times. Does changing the oil help prevent, yes, but we’d be talking an extremely dirty oil to clog one of the orifices on the lifter.

There is nothing wrong with 7,000 mile oil change intervals, as long as you’re not using oil from Jim Bob’s Barrel out back. What I do not agree with is engineers developing motors to run on 0W-20 for fuel efficiency.

4k was the quote I got for a 6L80 with Billet TC from shop.

27eyeguy wrote:

4k was the quote I got for a 6L80 with Billet TC from shop.

That is a great price IMO. Far cheaper than the one I replaced in my wifes a couple years ago.

That was for a 2017 tranny. They pull, rebuild, using better parts and the Billet TC. They do a 1yr, 12k mile warranty. They did a tranny few years back for me and a couple buddies went there also. We all agree they are great and would back with NO worries. A very good price since the GM replacement was 6400, but mine fell under the Lifetime Warranty so only cost me 100.

OH I gotcha so not a certified GM Reman like I got, but as long as they do the right work then it should be good. Mine has a 3 year 36k warranty.

I got the same 3 yr, 100k with my replacement also. If it would have not been covered under warranty I was going to them. I actually asked the dealership if they would cover me having them rebuild tranny. Answer was a very quick NO lol.