Hello--I've got a '94 Buick Park Avenue with 116,000 miles on it. For the past 2 weeks, the automatic transmission has been shifting very hard when put into reverse and drive. (Transmission was serviced last by the dealership at 102,000 miles). We took the car in to the dealership--they told us that the tranny is "gone", has an internal problem, and stated that the whole transmission would have to be replaced for $2,860 (includes tax, labor, tranny and a 3 year/36,000 mile warranty).
I then took the car to Mr. Transmission. Mechanic there states problem is with the torque converter, and that there is an internal problem, but he believes we caught the problem early, and that there has not been any damage to "hard parts". His plan is to pull the transmission ($400), find the internal problem, replace the torque converter. He uses Transtech aftermarket parts, not GM. He could not give me an estimate on how much this would cost--anywhere between $1000 and $2800. Warranty is 1 year, 12,000 miles.
I want to keep this car for another 3 years, and am leaning on biting the bullet and having the dealer replace this tranny with a remanufactured one from the factory. This transmission has been problematic in the past (when car was new--torque converter was replaced under original car warranty).
My questions are as follows:
1) Are aftermarket transmission parts (transtech) as reliable as the GM? 2) Are factory rebuilt transmissions (GM) reliable, and worth the extra money? 3) We've had problems with the car shaking while at speeds of 55--65 mph. Could this be caused by the transmission? (A year ago the dealership stated the shaking problem was caused by a bad harmonic balancer, which was replaced).Thank you for your time-- Best regards--r3