My sister has a '99 GP GTP, with the supercharged 3.8 and 4T65E-HD. 130K mileage.

It has been driving fine... east coast to west coast and back a couple times... but on its last trip it kicked out a P0742. In the last 9 months, it kicked out maybe 2 more. With my experience with my own dying 4T65E (non-HD), I figured the tranny was slowly dying (mine hung on for 30K).... but in the case, the tranny just shutdown completely this weekend. No forward or reverse gears... after a short cooling period, it drove a few more blocks before repeating the problem. When the tow truck driver showed up, the rear brakes seemed to be locked up. WTF?

Thinking it was a sticking brake, not a bad tranny, it got towed home. Today it was being limped over to a shop to check out the brakes and the tranny dropped out again. No forward or reverse gears. The normal shop told her to take it to a tranny shop... it got towed there... the guy took it out for a drive, it died again and he claims that the torque converter is bad, likely leading to a bad pump and total contamination with burnt fluid. Bottom line: needs a rebuild, and quoted $2K. Only test driven, didn't drop the pan or even hook any test equipment up.

Now, I'm 3000 miles from the car, but the fluid was slightly dirty but not burnt when I last saw it last August... and my sister didn't feel it smelled burnt this weekend. In all the years of banging on cars, I've never had a torque converter go bad... and with the symptoms exhibited so far, I would have liked to see the filter changed or checked first before determining it needs a full rebuild. I accept that it will need rebuilding at some point, but I am not feeling satisfied by the diagnosis here.

My next concern is that with such a knee-jerk diagnosis that I have to worry about a rebuild being done correctly... I'd hate to have the 4T65E-HD rebuilt into a 4T65E.

Anyone know a good tranny shop in the Los Angeles area?

BKNJ