GMC Acadia tranny issues

[JT88K5]

My daughters 2013 Acadia is having tranny problems. They had to drive it in reverse the last two miles to a mechanic I use, drive was unusable. He is limited, but has determined the problem is in the TCU. Throttle sensor and brake position sensor have been replaced.

so the dealer wants like $2500 for a new tcu and to program it. There is a tranny guy local says he can do it for around $1000. Is it not feasible to pull one from the junkyard and install it assuming it was the same year, engine etc?

 

[Fastereddie]

It still has to be flashed with your vin and stuff I think.

 

[ZooMad75]

My daughters 2013 Acadia is having tranny problems. They had to drive it in reverse the last two miles to a mechanic I use, drive was unusable. He is limited, but has determined the problem is in the TCU. Throttle sensor and brake position sensor have been replaced.

so the dealer wants like $2500 for a new tcu and to program it. There is a tranny guy local says he can do it for around $1000. Is it not feasible to pull one from the junkyard and install it assuming it was the same year, engine etc?

The TCM is internal to the transmission. The warranty time is 2.2 hours, figure an hour of labor for diag too. Add a 40% premium for retail customer pay rates and you'll see where some of the cost comes in. They might be charging for programming and resetting shift adapts and baseline values that need to be relearned after a TCM replacement.

I have not put a used TCM in a customer's vehicle in our shop. In theory, it should be able to be reprogrammed but I'm not going to bet on it.

 

[Greg Ducato]

I have seen plenty of TCU incidents on these transmissions but none have ever rendered the vehicle unable to go in any forward range. My guess is that your problems run much deeper. The most common failure is converter clutch which then clogs the filter and smokes the trans. There is usually plenty of slipping and whining before total failure but some people try and push past that point. The filter is not replaceable without a complete trans tear down ( thanks GM engineers). If you find a good used replacement trans it will need to be reprogrammed to the vehicle, usually about $200 by the dealer.