I'll try to make this story short.....

July 2012 I'm 20 miles west of Edmonton pulling a 25' fifth wheel and my ATS transmission starts to slip. The reason I bought this truck in the first place was because it was supposed to have this supper heavy duty transmission with billeted torque converter etc. etc. By the looks of the glossy ATS brochure that was in the truck when I bought it made you think it was bulletproof.

St Albert Transmission replaced the modified valve body that ATS put in there and also installed a new heavy duty Torque converter as well as a whole bunch of other stuff.

Anyway I nursed the truck into St. Albert and took it to St. Albert Transmission Centre. $4753.56 later and back home I go. Oh wait almost forgot,....got down the hi-way about 10 miles and noticed I had an oil leak. Back to St. Albert I go and $1053.99 later and a new heat exchanger and now were all good. Yea right.

I know........ the heat exchanger leak was their fault but I was in no mood to argue, I just wanted to get home.

July 2015 and 16,000 miles later I'm travelling empty not pulling anything and just outside of Peterborough Ontario the rebuilt tranny starts slipping in and out of gear. It's kinda hard to explain how it was acting because first its pulling then its stops and it even feels like the motor is missing sometimes cause it jerks. Let up on the accelerator and then push it down and it will start pulling again then suddenly nothin. It was like free wheelin down the hi-way.

Anyway.... I took it to Peterborough Transmission and they tore into it and said everything looked new inside except for one part which was not changed the first time around which was the reverse drum. $3216.56 later and away we go although I thought I felt the odd shift glitch once in a while.

April 19 2016 and only 4250 miles later guess what .....YUP she's slipping in and out of gear again so now what. Peterborough trans only offered 3 months warranty because they said the truck has a tuner.

What can be wrong with this **** thing? I'm looking at the invoices and as far as I can see every bloody part in and out of the unit has been replaced. the list is long and expensive and lists a lot of what I see talked about on other threads with similar problems!!!!!

I can't afford to drive this truck anymore and if I can just get this issue behind me this truck will be gone.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Footnote: I should have added that every now and then I get the crankshaft sensor fault. The motor runs fine so I just erase it but then it will show up again after a long while.

 

First off, they never should have replaced the ATS valve body.

The valve body and the Torque converter are the heart and soul of the trans.

I personally favor Goerend stuff, but ATS is a super top notch, reputable company that stands behind its product.

You don't want to hear this, but if you want it to hold you have 2 choices, put a real built trans in to take the torque of the tune, or rebuild her stock and take the power output to stock.

Your typical transmission shop is not going to be able to build one to take the torque without the VB and TC from the aftermarket.

 

that much money could have bought a standard with a sbc clutch

 

I never use the full power that this motor can dish out, in fact the tuner is always at it's lowest setting. I'm not knocking ATS I really have no knowledge of all these add power items. The truck has all the power I need without the tuner and I would actually prefer it not to be there at all.

I'm 72 years old so the days of gunning it off the line and screeching tires are far behind me so I don't think I've abused the transmission by using excessive power.

I just don't know what the problem is. When it was rebuilt the second time the guy said everything was like new inside except for 1 part which they replaced so ??????????????

BTW there are no codes.

 

I agree with Pat..the ATS valve body is designed to flow pressure differently than a stock valve body...this change in pressure is one of the things that makes the other parts last longer.

Because the Cummins makes so much torque down low in the RPM band you do not have the mass of fluid spinning in the torque converter (fluid coupling) that in essence acts a little like a shock absorber in a gasser transmission spinning at higher RPM's . This is just one of the issues a properly built trans changes and most of the transmission shops just put things back to old weak "stock" configuration.

I know this isn't helping you any but I thought a little better understanding what is happening inside the trans might help. Best of Luck

 

Its tough when you are on vacation with the family and rv and a schedule and you have a breakdown miles from home.
It always ends with a subpar and overpriced repair. Ask me how I know!

As was mentioned, through no fault of your own, you now have a 48RE transmission of mismatch parts.

Its going to cost you even more dollars but the trans has to come out again and rebuilt again by a reputable trans shop.

BD Performance in the lower mainland has nationwide support and would be one suggestion based on their reputation and your location.

 

Thanks for the info regarding low RPM's and subsequent low pump pressures with a cummins engine which does help me understand a bit better.

However I still don't get something here.

They replaced the torque converter and the valve body so doesn't this make the tranny stock or are there other things in that transmission exclusive to ATS???

If it is stock and completely rebuilt shouldn't it do better than 5000 miles before it has to be rebuilt again.

Something is very wrong here..

 

Yes something is very wrong, but they absolved themselves of the warranty because of the tuner.

I personally wouldn't spend another dime with that shop.

 

OK well it's scheduled to go into the transmission shop on Friday morning so hopefully I'll be a bit wiser (and probably broker) come Friday afternoon.

Thanks guys for the info and I did learn some things here anyway.

 

Tranny from Hell Update

Problem solved. Got hold of Peterborough Automatic and they told me that since the truck was sitting all winter it would pay to check battery ground connections. Sure enough one cable was loose and had some corrosion. Cleaned and tightened it up then took the old girl for a spin down the highway and up a long winding hill at slow speed and she shifts just fine. No jumping gears or any odd behavior. Who knew!!!!

 

Good that you found it, I guess I was assuming you had more than a simple OD hunting issue.

Now that you know what it feels like, it is more common than not, and in some cases can drive you nuts.

It usually is a simple grounding issue though, but can be from many different places.

If it happens on the road in the future, just pull her out of OD and continue on home.

 

Patdaly,
Sorry but I don't know what you mean when you say "pull her out of OD".
I'm not a texter so these abbreviations are confusing to me.

 

Overdrive

 

Yep, sorry, Overdrive. When you feel that back and forth it is the transmission shuttling between Overdrive and Drive.