Hey everyone, I’m figuring I should bring the rig to a dealer for a trans service since they know what they’re doing when adjusting bands. If I bring it to them and a short time after the trans starts slipping who’s at fault? What would happen, am I going to pay for a trans or would the dealer be at fault for being the last to service?

 

I have no idea how the liability would be handle but I thought you might find it helpful to know.

Before doing my own, i was quoted $150 by aamco, fluid, filter, band adjustment.

Depending what you pay for fluid, that's as little as $75 more than the cost of materials.

Adjusting them is easy work.

 

that was a quick/dirty reply from my phone.

Now that I'm sitting at a keyboard...

Aamco's quote to me was that $150. I spent just shy of $20 on filter/gasket kit, and ended up buying 8 quarts of ATF+4 at $8 a quart with tax...$84 for all materials. $150 is actually a pretty fair price all things considered. I'm happy to have done my own.

My point though is to give you some price reference because I'm pretty sure the dealer is going to overcharge you for this job. Adjusting the bands is pretty straight forward work. If a shop has a torque wrench that goes down to 72 inch pounds, and they can read the manual and measure how many times they turned a bolt - they have all the needed expertise. The hardest part of the entire job wasn't technical, it was getting at forward band with a torque wrench because I didn't have a low profile torx or allen ratchet head (I can't remember which it was) and I'm sure they do, plus it will be easier on a lift, rather than laying under the truck.

As to the liability you discussed - is it slipping now or having other problems? If so, I hope you discuss it with whoever does the work for you.

If it's not giving you problems and is simply due for service, I wouldn't go into this expecting things to be bad when done. As long as they use the correct type of fluid/filter/amount - and can turn bolts to specified torque, there is no reason to expect a problem.

That being said, now that I've seen the difference between what some of the manuals say the amount of fluid required will be compared to what I put in....I would prob check the dipstick warmed up in neutral before i drove off...and I would prob ask very specifically how many quarts went in. However, that's just because I had 3-4 written sources tell me it was a 4 quart job (not human sources, books/manuals/the computer at autozone...which was written based off those same manuals it seems) and the reality was 6-7 quarts, based on letting it drain a couple hours. As long as the shop in question was measuring what came out, or checking the level not just relying on the book, they would be fine.

If I drove off the parking lot and felt something funny I would turn right back around and expect someone to make it right. However, if I ran into a problem a month later, I'm not sure I could hold the shop accountable. These 2nd gens are all older, most have many miles, many have towed a lot. They are all 'due' for an issue of one kind or another.

Ray

for reference my $150 quote was the 47RE transmission on 99 V10 automatic - 2500.