# M32 transmission saga finally over???



## sparkman (Oct 15, 2015)

jblackburn said:


> I would have a VERY hard time staying with GM in the future. A freaking transmission should definitely last more than 52,000 miles. Thank goodness this car came with a good powertrain warranty.


Exactly. I'm in the same boat bud. Love/hate relationship with this car.

I think the main reason people are getting PO'd is their dealer experience. Take Terryk2003 for example, his rebuild job by his dealer was CRAP. Take my car for example, I had mine rebuilt and it still has the same issue. I was told to drive it till it blows up! Look at BrandoFisher, his dealer is giving him the runaround as well. If I remember correctly, joshuab had a crappy dealer experience as well. And these users are just off the top of my head...

Glad your car is fixed, the shiny transmission looks great! You plan on keeping the car still?


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## MP81 (Jul 20, 2015)

jblackburn said:


> A freaking transmission should definitely last more than 52,000 miles. Thank goodness this car came with a good powertrain warranty.


I'd blame the transmission manufacturer (which I believe is Getrag), rather than GM.

As for your service experience...that's another story...


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## jblackburn (Apr 14, 2012)

> You plan on keeping the car still?


I am undecided. Love/hate relationship like you said. If any big issues come up in the next few months, it's getting sold immediately. Or left in a ditch and set on fire, either one works.

This year alone, it has been transmission issues, a dead throttle body, a water pump in the middle of a trip, and fighting with the dealer to replace the intake manifold for the missing check valve. My parents have owned their Accord TEN YEARS and not a single thing has ever broken.

I don't mind working on my own car, but major expense stuff like that isn't something I should have to go into with a car this new. And I do like driving the little thing.

I would really consider a new Cruze (it feels like it's a very well built and designed car), or possibly a Malibu. I would like to hope that my past couple experiences with this dealer and becoming personally acquainted with the shop foreman and manager would lead to better quality of work and experiences for me and other customers in the future, but I just don't know. My experience with Toyota dealers around my area has not been very positive, either. They do shoddy workmanship and don't check their work. The Toyota was picked up after a timing chain replacement with the check engine light on and idling like a tractor. Really?



> I'd blame the transmission manufacturer (which I believe is Getrag), rather than GM.


I'm sure the flywheel itself (not sure if that's a GM design itself?) was actually to blame for the input shaft bearing failing, but several others here have had internal bearing failures that result in a loud whine. Either way, both manufacturers have been making transmissions for many, many years. Stop building crap.


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## Tomko (Jun 1, 2013)

Curious to know if it is a new transmission or a SRTA. Also curious what the customer pay would have been.


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## jblackburn (Apr 14, 2012)

*M32 transmission saga finally over*



Tomko said:


> Curious to know if it is a new transmission or a SRTA. Also curious what the customer pay would have been.


This one is new. That's what took them so long to get one. M32s are on "national backorder". It looks to be an updated design which has no level port like mind had, and is supposed to have "beefier bearings" according to the transmission tech. 

Bill - dunno - didn't see the paperwork on that; just the parts replaced. Probably well over $2000 at dealer rates.


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## beaurrr (Aug 27, 2016)

Help me understand...Was it the flywheel or the transmission? Or did a faulty flywheel _cause _the transmission to fail? It kind of sounds like the latter but it's hard to tell.


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## jblackburn (Apr 14, 2012)

*M32 transmission saga finally over*



beaurrr said:


> Help me understand...Was it the flywheel or the transmission? Or did a faulty flywheel _cause _the transmission to fail? It kind of sounds like the latter but it's hard to tell.


Initially JUST the flywheel. However, it was extremely intermittent when it would jam and make knocking noises. 95% of the time it worked as it should. It would normally show up after a long highway trip or when the motor had been under a heavy load, like a mountain trip. 

It became very bad about a month or two ago - knocking more consistently at idle and at one point on a trip, it began to shake the whole car at idle, and then I noticed that it subsided somewhat when the clutch was pushed in. I took it in the next day, making the noise and left it idling for them. (Of course, it wasn't doing it when they got someone to look at it, so I had to go out and duplicate for them).

Anyway, I believe that massive amount of shaking did a number on the input shaft bearing for the transmission.


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## beaurrr (Aug 27, 2016)

I can totally see how a bad flywheel can hose the transmission over time.


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## Tomko (Jun 1, 2013)

Curious to know if you ever changed the transmission oil?


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## IndyDiesel (May 24, 2015)

MP81 said:


> I'd blame the transmission manufacturer (which I believe is Getrag), rather than GM.
> 
> As for your service experience...that's another story...


there are multiple folks at fault, first the manufacturer and then the dealer, giving a car back only to have issues before you leave the lot is careless and just plain sloppy by the dealer, why would anyone want an experience like that? Doesn't the tech drive the car prior to releasing it?


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## jblackburn (Apr 14, 2012)

Tomko said:


> Curious to know if you ever changed the transmission oil?


Twice. Switched to Amsoil Synchromesh for a few months, then 75w-90 because I wasn't happy with it. Night and day difference. 

Haven't yet driven it hard enough to test the 2nd gear grind, but the new one is shifting ok on the GM fluid, and I will probably leave it in there until it doesn't. 

Wouldn't have anything to do with the flywheel failure though.


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## jblackburn (Apr 14, 2012)

IndyDiesel said:


> MP81 said:
> 
> 
> > I'd blame the transmission manufacturer (which I believe is Getrag), rather than GM.
> ...


If he'd even started the engine the last time, this was pretty blatantly obvious.


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## jblackburn (Apr 14, 2012)

Update. About 500 miles on the car since, I now have a creak and sort of a 'pop' feeling when taking off from a dead stop.

If you hear about a Virginia man crashing a Chevy through a dealer service bay, it was probably me.

Transmission guy with "30 years of experience", my butt.


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## sparkman (Oct 15, 2015)

jblackburn said:


> Update. About 500 miles on the car since, I now have a creak and sort of a 'pop' feeling when taking off from a dead stop.
> 
> If you hear about a Virginia man crashing a Chevy through a dealer service bay, it was probably me.
> 
> Transmission guy with "30 years of experience", my butt.



:lol: Dude I won't blame you if you did. I'd be right behind you in mine too.


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## jblackburn (Apr 14, 2012)

Bad transmission mount; undertorqued or something.

Hopefully THIS is the end of the story. Drives fine now.


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## jblackburn (Apr 14, 2012)

Update:

Still rattling. Thinking throw-out bearing...only part not replaced, and rattles when clutch is out/engaged. Not sure if it's covered under PT warranty, but if they'd told me it needed to be replaced while they were in there, well, I wouldn't still be in this situation...

GM Customer Care got a long, detailed email. This will be the 5th time it has gone into the dealer for this/dealer screwups related to this.

This has greatly soured me to the GM dealer experience/brand.


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## MP81 (Jul 20, 2015)

jblackburn said:


> Update:
> 
> Still rattling. Thinking throw-out bearing...only part not replaced, and rattles when clutch is out/engaged. Not sure if it's covered under PT warranty, but if they'd told me it needed to be replaced while they were in there, well, I wouldn't still be in this situation...
> 
> ...


If they had the trans out, that's just due diligence...

Sounds like an absolutely awful dealer.


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## XtremeRevolution (Jan 19, 2012)

****, what a **** experience. I'd be in exactly the same situation as you if that happened to me. Fortunately, my flywheel issue was resolved effectively and no issues have returned since. It has been 6,500 miles since they replaced my flywheel, clutch, and pressure plate and with 65,500 miles on the car, I'm happy to report that it doesn't have any issues. 

It really seems like everything you're going through is the dealer's inability to diagnose and repair your vehicle correctly. Had this been resolved the right way the first time, and everything replaced that needed to be, you'd be happy with your car and would have saved yourself a great deal of headache. 

I hope you end up better than I did with the customer service; GM doesn't seem to be so willing to help its loyal customers as they were a year or two ago, let alone their social media advocates. I've owned nothing but GM vehicles my entire life, but that dealer experience I had, where they REFUSED to do warranty work on my vehicle unless I agreed to let them hack up my engine shield, only so they could sell me another one from them at dealer cost (and leave it in the back seat for me), pissed me the **** off and made me take some very hard looks at Honda's latest offerings. 

GM, if you're reading this, you screwed up with two social media moderators that have for quite some time supported the community that talks up and brings exposure to your brand and products. This is not how you do business, and you may very well have lost two big customers for life because of how you handled these issues. I did not appreciate my vehicle behind held hostage by GM and practically strong-armed into letting them perform a recall I very specifically did not want done.


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## sparkman (Oct 15, 2015)

Make that another forum member and the rest of his family (3) that will not be buying GM either. After how I was treated with my transmission issue by dealer (but Customer care came to the rescue, but still, they shouldn't have to get involved) and the latest epidemic with my mother's 2015 Tahoe with bad catalytic converters, we are done. 

All we owned was GM products as far as I remember. We still are a GM family, but when the company truck is a 2013 Ford and has drove 118k TROUBLE FREE miles, when the rest of our GM fleet can't even make it 10k miles with some major issue, we are seriously thinking on trading it in on something else. 

I realize all vehicles have their issues as well, but if the dealer's treated us nicer I would be glad to stay with GM. 

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk


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## MP81 (Jul 20, 2015)

Dealers have long been a problem. Ours has always been great (the one we have the car serviced at, right by our house, as well as the one an hour away where we bought it - and will buy the next car, when it is time - we know people there quite well, they sponsor the local Fbody Association/website I am a part of), so we're lucky there. But there really are some absolute garbage ones out there. GM generally doesn't like dealers acting like that, and you know there are avenues (not just customer care) to pursue to address that...

Between my wife and I, we've owned nothing but Chevy vehicles - 7 in total (Three Cobalts, one Cavalier, a Cruze and two old Camaros), and I plan on only adding to that number. I also do the majority of my own work, so this helps matters.

When we had the emissions issue on the Cruze this year, it wouldn't have affected my purchasing of another Chevrolet - just whether or not I'd buy new again. I'd rather buy used and have the same issue, but not have to be pissed off that the warranty didn't cover it, and just deal with it myself. Would suck just the same, but at least I wouldn't be facing a seeming injustice.


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## jblackburn (Apr 14, 2012)

Even got it to act up as I pulled into the service bay this time! #proud

Talked to the shop foreman again and he said they'd get back in contact with GM tech support. Meanwhile, I and many others in the FB group suspect it's a throwout bearing (which should have been changed with the clutch kit that I paid for...)

So, back in a 2016 loaner while they "fix it for sure this time". Uh huh.


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## chevrasaki (May 1, 2015)

This whole thing really bums me out. There's nothing worse than issues with your vehicle. I really hope you're able to get this taken care of for good this time. Hopefully you can get back to just driving it soon.


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## Robby (Mar 1, 2013)

MP81 said:


> Dealers have long been a problem. Ours has always been great (the one we have the car serviced at, right by our house, as well as the one an hour away where we bought it - and will buy the next car, when it is time - we know people there quite well, they sponsor the local Fbody Association/website I am a part of), so we're lucky there. But there really are some absolute garbage ones out there. GM generally doesn't like dealers acting like that, and you know there are avenues (not just customer care) to pursue to address that...
> 
> Between my wife and I, we've owned nothing but Chevy vehicles - 7 in total (Three Cobalts, one Cavalier, a Cruze and two old Camaros), and I plan on only adding to that number. I also do the majority of my own work, so this helps matters.
> 
> When we had the emissions issue on the Cruze this year, it wouldn't have affected my purchasing of another Chevrolet - just whether or not I'd buy new again. I'd rather buy used and have the same issue, but not have to be pissed off that the warranty didn't cover it, and just deal with it myself. Would suck just the same, but at least I wouldn't be facing a seeming injustice.


Off topic but I need to ask......what dealer, what F Body organization in MI are you referring to?

Rob


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## jblackburn (Apr 14, 2012)

So, final verdict:






Dealer tried to duplicate for a week, I was able to duplicate for them within 20 mins (slight rattle). Transmission tech said "ah, it's just the dual mass flywheel making a little bit of noise. A little bit is normal for these things." 

Tried arguing for a bit; they just said to bring it back (again!) if it got louder. Got it home and it was doing this.

Anyway, I'm the proud owner of a new one now!


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## jsusanka (Jan 31, 2011)

"Anyway, I'm the proud owner of a new one now" 

So you got a new Cruze?


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## jblackburn (Apr 14, 2012)

jsusanka said:


> "Anyway, I'm the proud owner of a new one now"
> 
> So you got a new Cruze?


I did!

http://www.cruzetalk.com/forum/6-new-cruzetalk-start-here/182746-new-kinetic-blue-premier-owner.html


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## AZ007 (Sep 26, 2014)

XtremeRevolution said:


> GM, if you're reading this, you screwed up with two social media moderators that have for quite some time supported the community that talks up and brings exposure to your brand and products. This is not how you do business, and you may very well have lost two big customers for life because of how you handled these issues. I did not appreciate my vehicle behind held hostage by GM and practically strong-armed into letting them perform a recall I very specifically did not want done.


To be fair, you guys have been mucking around, whether it's running oil to 15k or out-of-spec tranny fluid. I don't know all the details, but I can understand why GM would be a little hesitant to do warranty work.


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## XtremeRevolution (Jan 19, 2012)

AZ007 said:


> To be fair, you guys have been mucking around, whether it's running oil to 15k or out-of-spec tranny fluid. I don't know all the details, but I can understand why GM would be a little hesitant to do warranty work.


That has absolutely nothing to do with this. If I had run the factory spec mtf and only that, I would have sold the car by now. It was undrivable and J changed it because the oe fluid kept grinding 2nd gear. 

I had flywheel failure. What does that have to do with fluids? Absolutely nothing. I had the original, unmolested engine shield and my purchasing dealer allowed me to waive having the recall done which literally just involves taking a Sawzall to the shield. My dealer blackmailed me saying, after the transmission was already out of the car, that they would refuse to do the work unless I let them hack up the shield. It's absolutely ridiculous. This dragged on for MUCH longer than it should have and ended up with the dealer selling me the Verano shield, which was identical to my original one, for dealer cost. 

Next, they advised a clutch replacement while it was apart so I OFFERED to buy the gmpp clutch, which would have been cheaper than their OEM clutch and would include the flywheel. This is standard on newer Cruzes! Nope, GM refused to replace the flywheel under warranty with a better one even if I offered to pay for it unless I also paid for labor, and get this, this is AFTER the dealer had bolted up the gmpp kit to my engine and transmission!!! 

GM offered me absolutely no solutions for any of this all the way up to their office of the president. 

Sent from my STV100-1 using Tapatalk


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## jblackburn (Apr 14, 2012)

AZ007 said:


> To be fair, you guys have been mucking around, whether it's running oil to 15k or out-of-spec tranny fluid. I don't know all the details, but I can understand why GM would be a little hesitant to do warranty work.


Lmao. I have done neither. My car wasn't even tuned. But that would have nothing to do with the totally separated from fluid flywheel, throwout bearing, OR input shaft bearing. 

You should put in an application for a warranty claims department though. They might like you.


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## AZ007 (Sep 26, 2014)

Really? So you think there's zero possibility that changing the viscosity of the transmission fluid might affect the dynamics of the flywheel?


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## jblackburn (Apr 14, 2012)

Zero. Especially considering they're a common failure point on MTs from a lot of other manufacturers as well as on this car on stock fluid.

The counterweight or a spring jams up from trying to smooth out vibrations or sudden power on/off applications from the little 4 cylinder. Nothing to do with fluid.


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## XtremeRevolution (Jan 19, 2012)

You have got to be joking. It's a dual mass flywheel and the tolerance between the two masses grew out of spec and started rattling. 

The change in viscosity in the transmission fluid between OE and AMSOIL Synchromesh is smaller than you'd see if you bought the car in Texas and moved to Alaska. The net effects on the flywheel is inconsequential. You'll put less stress on the flywheel due to frictional losses using a thicker fluid than you would changing out the ECO tires for something heavier and non-lrr. 

The viscosity had nothing to do with it.

Sent from my STV100-1 using Tapatalk


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