hi kids,bad story on my 04 ss 3.8, tranny shot craps last thursday,side of ashby rd for 1 hr waiting for tow truck in 4`weather. not fun.anyway take it to transmissions to go here in arnold mo and the dude sez u need a rebuild. ok how much?$1800 WTF? is this the going rate to do a 4t65e tranny? so i called him today to see if my car was done and he says i need to get the computer programed or ill ruin another tranny.WTF AGAIN! is this shop hosing me or is this normal ? HELP!

 

From the prices I have heard thats not to terrible of a price, does that include everything, remove, reinstall? Others have been quoted upwards of $2600.

If you could do everything yourself thats where the savings show up.

I do believe you will need a reflash to get the best performance from your new tranny. Should not be too crazy spendy as it's not that complicated of a process.

 

Dave heres my thoughts,

You need to find out if he did a soft or hard rebuild...
2nd... There is some computer adjusting that needs to be made in order for it to operate correctly..the current settings in it are for the damaged trans.. (the comp makes adjustments on the fly when it was failing... He maybe also updateing your comp for better performance longevity...
Which was also done to mine wen I had mine rebuilt a cpl years ago...

So, you need to nail him down as to what exactly he did to it...
That's the only way you'll truly know whether the charges are justified...

I had mine done as a "soft" rebuild... It cost me $1000.00.
I had been quoted from as little as $1300.00 to as much as $2200.00..
It depends on the shop as well as do you trust this shop to do it correctly.

 

do you have a source for this information?

your PCM does not change the tables that are built into it. it has different tables for different conditions and simply unhooking your battery will reset your PCM so it can then "learn" which tables it can now go with and be safe.

there should be absolutely no reason to change anything on your PCM unless you WANT TO or if your PCM is FAILING.

 

If gearing wasn't changed etc and the only thing done was a rebuild with replacement parts I don't see why the pcm needs tuned for the new trans....

 

and as turbo monte said, if the did change the gearing, you should be asking WTF are they doing and why they did it...

my hunch, as with many transmission shops, is that they went to the junk yard, got the cheapest one they could find and put that in. and in this case, if they did, they probably got the wrong one with the wrong gearing.

that is the ONLY reason, that i can think of, as to why you should have to have your PCM programmed for the new transmission.

 

update on 04 3.8 tranny. went to the shop 2 p/u my car and asked the guy what they did.hard or soft? he told me they did a hard rebuild. ok i guess i"ll have to take his word, how am i going to know? it's a good shop and i dont think they would f-me. anyway, the tranny looks like it was hot tanked,shifts, no more hesitation no more hard shifts, etc. the thing looks like factory. could not b happier.thanks 2 all who wrote back. stumpmi thx 4 ur input thats why i asked the questions i did.

 

did you ask him why he said you have to have the computer reprogrammed?