Little backstory:

I bought my 00 ZR2 a little over a month ago with 131K on it and a slipping trans. Finally took it in a couple weeks ago to have the trans rebuilt. Got it back a week ago (rough times here, I don't recall them exactly) and then Saturday night decided to do a little fairly light wheeling with a buddy of mine. I say light wheeling because it was just a little field we were in, and I can't go more than 1/2 throttle due to a misfire I haven't fixed yet. So I didn't think I could do anything TOO strenuous to the truck.

We got done mudding and all was fine. Drove home without any issues. Yesterday, I went to the car wash, got some lunch, etc without any issues.

Last night I had a first date with a girl, got halfway there and voila, no forward gears. I turned a corner and the RPMs jumped up like I was in neutral, but I had hit the gas pretty hard on accident so I thought maybe the trans kicked into a lower gear. I laid off the gas and ignored it. Got to a red light a few blocks later and when the light turned green, I wasn't moving.

Let the truck sit for a while as I pulled it into the parking lot, and when a friend got there, we put it in reverse and it worked. For a couple seconds, forward gears worked as well, then stopped again.

So today it's being towed to the shop to have the mechanic look at it. Did I just FUBAR my trans again?

I tried 4WD as well as 2WD and couldn't move forward, plus checked the rear driveshaft, so it does not appear to be anything other than perhaps the trans going bad or my T case gone kaboom to me. What do you guys (and girls, obviously) think?

 

Does it move when you put the shifter in 1 or 2 (or L, depending)?

 

For the 30 seconds or so that it was moving, yes all gears worked. But then once it stopped working again, no forward gears worked at all. I have 1,2,3,D if I'm not mistaken, and none of them worked.

 

Is it possible that mud caked around the trans could have overheated the trans?

Or maybe an electrical sensor got wet and was malfunctioning without throwing a code?

 

Doubtful that mud would cause the transmission to overheat. It may have damaged the wiring, but even then, I would think it should engage 1st gear...

 

I hope it's nothing serious. I didn't do anything really strenuous so if the trans itself went out after just having it rebuild, I'm gonna be quite irritated.

Side note: glad as heck for having towing on my insurance. Just called and breakdowns are covered as well as accidents, so they'll meet me after work and tow the car to the mechanic so I don't have to worry about paying the mechanic and waiting for reimbursement.

 

Well, my mechanic won't even look at the truck without charging me for at least 2 hours so he can spray the undercarriage down, so it looks like it's going to go straight to the trans shop since funds are a bit tight. Now I have a question for you guys, I need some opinions.

OK, so here are my two "good" options on the trans:

1 push it to the car wash, spray the everloving **** out of it and hope I get enough mud off that whatever the trans problem is gets taken care of by the trans guy under warranty

OR
2 tow the car home, take a few days underneath it washing the **** out of EVERYTHING to make damn sure there is not a single spec of dirt under it. Then while I'm there, take a look for loose linkage or anything of the like that I can fix myself. If I don't see anything, then call the trans guy and rest more or less assured that unless he finds dirt INSIDE the trans, it's covered.

Number 2 is a "better" option in that it's more likely the trans will be covered under warranty... but it'll take a lot longer and possibly not make a difference. Plus the fact that we don't have a hose or anything.

 

K so did you take it to the shop today? How did it go? Im curious!

 

Drove the truck (in reverse) to the spray and wash Tuesday, spend $10 to spray the crap out of it. Then drove it (again, in reverse) to my roommate's work which is also on the same block, used their hose, crawled underneath the truck and cleaned up as much of the mud as I could get to.

Then yesterday, I called insurance and got them to tow the truck up to the trans guy.

So I hope to know what's up today. I'll make sure to fill you in as soon as I hear.

 

ok! Hopefully he will fix it.