Ok, so I go to make a right hand turn at a stoplight, I make it through the turn just fine, I get the car staightend out, start to accel and all of a sudden the car slams to a halt for a brief second, almost giving me whiplash, and then continues. I drive for about quarter mile and then (the car is in drive) the transmission starts slipping. I pull into the nearest parking lot (kmart) and pull into a stall and put the car into park. I sit in my car at idel trying to regain what the heck just happened, I put the car into reverse, here a loud noise and then there is nothing. I press on the gas and nothing. I put it into drive and nothing. all gas and no motion. A very familiar smell of burnt transmission fluid fills the air and all is lost. So the question is , maybe the tourque converter is shot (one is to only hope) or the clutchs are fried? This just happend tonight 10/29/04 at 9:30 p.m. so i have no idea either. I will have to have the car towed to the most reliable tranny shop and see what the h happened. Hopefully it is nothing to serious (yeah right). Any info on previous tranny problems would be a great help. my car is modded with the stage 1xcam and such. By any means I do not BEAT on my car. It has never seen a drag strip yet and I only drive it on saturdays, I have a 1993 bonneville that i do all of my other driving on, work, groceries and such. Maybe i don't drive it enough and the tranny components were seized up or something. I don't know. any info or help would be great!

did any transmission fluid leak out(on the ground)? Sorry to hear about that man. What'* your mileage? It'd be nice but I doubt you're in the GM warranty range of 36,000 miles. :(

My guess is flexplate or TC. With burnt tranny smell i'm leaing towards the TC. Burned tranny fluid is not good and usualy (not always) is caused by lack of fluid in the transaxle. If it happened on the 1-2 shift it could also be the input shaft.

Once you find out the problem you can decide what to do. Any physical damage to the outside of the case? The 2 major week spots are the Diff and the input shaft. If the dif exploded youd know it. If the input shaft snapped it would free rev.

Sorry to hear about it :(

the car has 67,000 miles on it. couldn't tell if tranny fluid leaked out cause it was dark out. going to go check on it today.

I don't think it'd be the clutches because those usually dont' go suddenly like that. They start slipping more and more over time I'd think. So it'* probably something that would actually literally break like what was mentioned above---the input shaft is a really weak point. I've heard so many people snap those. :( Maybe it started to crack and fall apart and that was the hard shudder and then it finally just snapped not allowing the car to even move?

Your problem sounds similar to my own :( but I still have 1st, 2nd and rev?
I was crusing down the highway on Thursday when all of a sudden the tranny let go, the car would rev up but go no where. After I pulled over and let the car cool down, I could drive with only 1&2 gear (pull good too) but it wont shift into 3rd or OD. I lost some fluid and now there is a wet spot under the car after its been parked a while.
I did make it home in 2nd gear only (reving to 3500rpm or 55mph) about 400 miles total.
I'll have the car looked at on Monday, hopes it just a minor repair but I doubt it :?

Sorry to hear.
You guys are scaring me now.

O'Neil, keep us updated on the outcome.

Sorry to hear that Whisky, I local member had the same problem turned out to be his input-shaft snapped.

Gave me goose bumps reading this, I've been considering a Intense TQ converter soon.

Ouch!! You have pretty much the same symptom'* I had with my 1999 when the tranny went out. I was leaving in the morning so I started the car up, went back in to eat breakfast (10 minutes -enough for warming up), came back out and put it in reverse, started backing up, and as I was backing up the tranny kinda whined louder than normal. Put it in D and started going forward. Didn't get ten feet and I heard and felt a bang, and then it was normal. Got through town -about 1-2 miles, and got a red light. When I went to take of again there was nothing. No forward or reverse gears. Put it in neutral and pushed it around the corner into a parking lot. Tranny shop picked it up and found the input shaft worn through by a bearing that had been starved. Also, that tranny only had 7k on it since it'* last rebuild. Sadly, there was ALOT of damage done to the internals and although the first basic rebuild cost $12xx, this one would have cost upwards of $2k if it had been out of warranty.

Good luck with it. Hopefully it isn't too bad. Have the Tranny shop give you and estimate before you they rebuild it. For the cost you might get a Intense trans.

Any update on this?