I haven't been on here in a while, but my GM 4L85e quit working tonight. It's been slipping for two weeks now and the fluid is dark brown. You can even smell the burnt fluid when you first get out of the truck. Two days ago it even started to develop a shutter when in reverse. Tonight on my way home from the bank the truck died when I came to a stop. It started up fine, but every time I put it into any forward gear the truck would begin to shutter and die again. Luckily I was able to get it going by bringing the RPM's up to around 2300 and hitting the gas as soon as I put it into gear. I was only a few minutes from the house which worked out well as the truck wouldn't go out of first gear. I'm no tranny expert but I'd say the the clutch packs are toast. I spoke to GM last week when the slipping became more noticeable and they said it has a 3 year 100k mile warranty and that they will fix it. The only thing is they said for me to bring the whole truck in and they will do the entire swap. I installed this myself and I'm afraid that they might try to say the blower cause the failure even though I haven't raced the truck since the swap 16 months ago. My bone stock 60e lasted 60k miles and over 400 1/4 passes ( 150+ with the blower) before the clutch packs went out on it. Nothing has changed in the truck since the install. I'm going to see if they can cut me a deal on the difference in cost between mine and their new 720hp rated supermatic 4L85e (pt# 19154550). Any tranny experts that can confirm that it is the clutch packs? Maybe the converter balloned?

 

have you found out what failed yet? i don't think the converter balloned. usually if a converter fails like that the engine won't start.

 

I thought you were selling off everything Chris. You gonna keep the truck?

 

pm me. id still like to work out a deal!

 

damm,same here,mine blew on my 08 with only 5100 miles

btw any track times on your truck?

 

Thats some quality right there.

I've put two GM reman 4L80E's in over the last couple of months in two different trucks and both were extremely disappointing. I would imagine the 85E's shift the same way. I know they did on our schools G vans although the planetary gear whine sure does sound sweet once they start to sing around 4 grand. We all know smooth shift = slip right? Both of the said 80E's shifted as smooth as a Caddy Deville and these were one ton trucks. Its amazing they even last at all. But with the kind of warranty they have on them I guess its tollerable to keep slipping transmissions in it every few thousand miles.

 

Sorry for the delay everyone. Still isn't fixed yet. With the holidays and all the dealerships service depts. being closed on the weekends, my truck is still sitting. I've also been in disagreements with the dealerships over them wanting me to bring the entire truck in. Another dealership said I could bring just the tranny in, but they want some type of receipt proof that I changed the fluid after I installed it and some other bs stuff which the other dealerships didn't ask for. I think I've got it all worked out now and I'll be pulling it this weekend. They want to tear into it and see what happened so who knows when I'll get that one fixed or a new one back from them.


For now I'm going to keep it. The truck is 2 payments from being payed off, plus used blowers are selling too cheap right now and I don't really want to give it away. Once the tranny is fixed, I'll throw the 3.1 pulley on it and take it to a dyno. Not sure what I'll do after that. I still wouldn't mind seeing how far I could push the little old stock 5.3 longblock.

PM on your way.

12.98 @ 106 w/ 1.88 60' but that was old tranny. Full weight, Stock longblock 5.3, bone stock 4L60e, radix with stock pulley, short tube headers, magnaflow muffler, outlaw CAI, and MT ET Streets.
I never made it back to the track with the 85e, e-fans, TOG headers, and some other misc. stuff.

 

So when do you plan on going to the track? I wanna see what that thing does after all that work.

 

who did your tune?
did they mess with any transmission settings?

 

BirchSSclone, sorry if I missed this, but did you buy this 4L85E new?