Hello,

Trying to find some information- first time posting here. I've been wrenching for 20 years now (Saturn *-Series owner); but have owned a 2007 Chevy Uplander for a few years now (Wife'* Decision- Not mine.)

Here are the details.
2007 Chevy Uplander- GM 4-speed 4T65-E automatic transmission, with the 3.9L V6 Engine.

Mrs. 2ndsout and myself are in a bit of bind and I need some help.

We have a 2007 Chevy Uplander that we have on an auto loan that will be finished next year in 2018. It has the GM 4T65-E Auto Trans that is also used in the Saturn Relay, Buick Terraza, and Pontiac Montana.

We still owe $3158.98 on the Van before it is paid off.

Last Friday- my wife was on her way to take our son to school, when the Transmission went out on the Van. Recently it has been more difficult to move the gear out of Park and it would be difficult to get it into Drive or Reverse. I took it to a local repair shop that quoted me $3121.88 to Rebuild the Transmission. Keep in mind of what we owe as well. I don't have any spare money in my bank account to go and try to buy a newer vehicle so we are going to have to finance the repair through the repair shop. The van currently has 168xxx miles on it.

I had the Van towed to a specific Transmission repair shop to see if the price may be less. The shop is going to be calling me back today with the diagnosis.

What are the common issues that have been noted with the GM 4T65-E Transmission? I have read a whole slew of different things.

The plan is to get the repair financed through the shop for 6 months same as cash; at the same time the Van will be either paid off before then or right around the same time, and then the plan that I thought was to turn the Van and sell it outright for $2000-$2500 to get back some of the money for the Trans repair and use the money to buy a newer vehicle for my wife (2012-2014 model year vehicle)...

Or- We just drive the Van until the wheels fall off...

Thoughts/Comments/Ideas?

Wait, define difficulty getting it out of park, into drive, or reverse.

When we would try to move the gear shift on the steering column, at some points- the gear shift would not move to get it from Park into Drive, or even Reverse. Other times it was a bit more difficult- You would have to put some serious effort into moving the Gear shift and then it would go into the gear that you would want to put it into.

Regardless- it had become more difficult to switch from Park to Reverse or Drive off and on over the past couple of weeks.

Is all of the trouble focused around coming out of park?

Are you sure it is not an interlock issue?

I ask because my Park Avenue suffered from a sticky shift interlock solenoid that prevented the vehicle from coming out of park. Once I addressed the issue (disabled it), I haven't had any trouble since. The transmission was not the issue at all.

Also, I have never heard of a transmission failing in the manner you are describing.

Also, do you park on an incline?

Like thew guys asked, what is your actual problem?

As the guys say, if your only problem is getting it out of Park, it'* BTSI problem, not a transmission problem...

But you also say, the transmission "went out on the van"......does that mean when in R or D, the car does not move? If so, have you checked fluid level and condition? Codes should have been set....did the shops tell you of any codes? Did they even try to access codes?

Our Driveway is on a 25-35 degree incline, yes.
When my wife was driving last Friday, she was at a stop sign and went to drive forward and the Van started shaking. She had her foot on the gas and the engine was just revving and not moving. She only had Reverse and 2nd gear, and she wound up putting the van into Reverse and driving it backwards in the neighborhood until she got it back to house and parked the Van. No codes were thrown, but there was a heavy odor of burnt trans fluid.
When we would get the Van into drive out of Park, it was difficult to move the gear shift from Park into any of the other gears. We bought the Van with 99k miles on it, and we gave owned it for about 70k miles.
There have been a few minor instances where there was a slight hesitation at a stop light when we were in Drive, but I never really chalked it up to being an issue with the transmission.

When parked on the incline, do you set the parking brake, move to neutral, release the brakes, letting the parking the brake hold the van, and then shifting to park? Or do you shift to park and let that hold the van while parked in the driveway?

Also, what other maintenance has been done to the van while under your care?

Rjolly is right, if you ever park on an incline, you should step on the brake, put into Park, apply ebrake, turn off vehicle and then let go of the brake,,,,if you don't do this, when parking on an incline, the vehicle will move forward when you release the brake and jam the parking pawl in the transmission, making it hard to shift out of Park....

As for coming to a stop, and then stepping on the gas, and the vehicle has trouble moving, you may be starting in 2nd gear, due to a solenoid problem....this may not even be a problem in the transmission, it may be a harness problem to the transmission....proper diagnosis is essential....hard to believe a code wasn't set.....

However, the fact that the transmission fluid had a burnt smell to it brings into question, if a transmission service was ever done to the vehicle...I recommend one every 50K, even though GM recommends one every 100K miles....If never done, we could be looking at some serious work here....

To answer a few questions:

Whenever I would drive the Van out of our Driveway- I would always have my foot on the brake first, start the Van; with foot still on the brake- release the parking brake. With foot still on the brake pedal- I would go to shift from Park to Reverse to back out. Since we are on an incline we never backed the Van in, into the Driveway. We always park head end first in the Driveway.

If my wife did it the same way as I do- I don't know- since the Van is her daily driver.

Also- from a maintenance perspective- the Van has been relatively low cost. Since it is an LT model- it doesn't have the Entertainment system in it or the electric slidiing doors. It does have PW/PL. I have replaced a few lights on the front from typical burning out issues, as well as the Rear wiper Motor from a JY Uplander because the original went bad. I did the brakes all around last summer without any issues. Oil has been changed between every 5K-6K with Mobil 1 5000 oil as replacement along with STP oil filters. Since we were approaching the 170K mile mark- I was going to be replacing the Spark plugs and wires, along with changing the ATF Fluid and Filter, and doing a coolant change. This breakdown obviously beat me to a few things.

The Transmission shop called me yesterday.

The Prognosis is- not good. But we may have to go the route of getting the Van fixed.

The Planetary Gears are completely shot and will need to be replaced. The shop quoted me $1600 in parts. With labor to replace everything, the total comes to around $2800.

Sound about right? Everything I have read so far points to the parts not being the issue- but the labor being more the pain in the butt.

The Van is my wife'* daily driver- the bad thing is that we still owe $3100 on the Van before it'* paid off in February.

Do we just get the Trans fixed and drive it till it doesn't run anymore? Do we turn the Van in on a trade and get a newer vehicle with a roughly same vehicle payment per each month for 72 months?

Need some help... any ideas?