So I just bought a new to me '05 SS Supercharged---beautiful car with only 88K on it. I have noticed however that every so often when taking off it will "lurch" or "slip" its like I'm sitting on ice and all of a sudden it grabs and propels me forward (this does not happen all the time). I'm assuming this is not normal behavior? What would be the most likely cause of this? I noticed the trans fluid was quite dark so my buddy and I just dropped the pan and did a fluid, filter and gasket change in a hope that it might help.



Am I looking at a rebuild here? Should I swap the tranny out? Is there anything common that occurs in that year car that might be causing this issue? I'm willing to put money into it as the body is in mint condition.



Thanks for any suggestions.....

 

This is a problem my car had when I bought it.. I knew it and expected a rebuild to be necessary in the near future..

This "slip" turned into a horrible grind whenever I would start moving or when I would shift into D or R..

Personally I wouldnt replace the trans, I would have it rebuilt because theyre not the best transmissions and youre just gambling with it if you throw a used one in there.. Could be ready to go out..

 

Thanks for the quick response and I hope all remains good but the transmission has not slipped ONCE in the last two days. When we did the pan drop we put back in 7 QT's as directed by Autozone and it looked a little low so I stopped and picked up another quart of Valvoline Max Life transmission and ended up adding the whole bottle. We also put in a bottle of LubeGard red bottle when refilling after the pan drop.

I'll post back in a month or so but as of now I either got lucky and caught it in time it seems OR could it be after the pan drop that not all the fluid had recirculated through the transmission OR that LubeGard stuff really works?!?!

 

I just did a service on my car and found a listing for 7.4 quarts so that might why yours was a little low. I hope the tranny service solves your problem

 

That is a common problem with the 4t65 in general, but it can't be permanently fixed without a total teardown:

http://www.tripleedgeperformance.com/site/84a70bd69f594b279cfc34350f61b766/default?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftripleedgeperformance.com %2FNo-Forward-Cold.html#2749

I've had 2 4t65 cars do the same thing now:
-08 Impala 3500. Started about 65 or 70k with light slips, and by 100-105k it was getting pretty violent. I ended up just trading the car in so as not to have to deal with it, so I have no idea how long it lasted after that. I did a pan drop, filter, and light shift kit about 75k and it helped for awhile, but ended up coming back. The frustrating thing is that the car was literally babied it's entire life, and it was full of problems.
-07 Grand Prix 5.3. This car started doing it lightly around 55 or 60k. I did the same fluid + lucas/filter/shift kit and it helped, but still did it occasionally. Never got severe like the Impala, but the car got totalled at probably 70k, so I have no idea how much longer it would've lasted.


Hopefully your luck holds, but I'd definitely be saving for a rebuild in the near future.

 

I'm adding a ZZP tuned PCM in a couple weeks. I had one on my '01 Monte and that thing sifted smooth as butter. I noticed the ZZP tuned PCM says it helps "improve transmission life" so what the hell? I was gonna add it anyways.