Early Signs of Transmission Failure in the Excelle GT?
3 Answers
Early signs of transmission failure in the Excelle GT are as follows: 1. Transmission oil leakage: You may noticeably feel difficulty when starting the car, and although the engine RPM increases when accelerating, there is no obvious sense of speed improvement. The culprit could be oil leakage. Oil leakage leads to insufficient lubrication inside the transmission, causing it to malfunction. This issue is relatively simple to fix—just replace the transmission oil. 2. Transmission jerking: Symptoms include noticeable jerking or shaking during gear shifts while driving. The cause may be excessively high transmission oil temperature, stubborn dirt and impurities inside, or blockage in the valve body, leading to transmission jerking. Please visit a 4S shop or repair shop for inspection and maintenance. 3. Engine stalling after shifting gears: When shifting from P to D gear, the engine may stall immediately. The source of the problem could be damage to the solenoid valve or lock control valve, or a faulty input shaft speed sensor. Stop the car immediately and contact a 4S shop or authorized repair shop.
My Buick Excelle GT has been running for almost eight years, and I know this transmission's temperament all too well. Let me tell you about its 'tantrums' before they happen: The most obvious warning is a sudden 'clunk' when shifting gears, like being kicked from behind, especially when starting with a cold engine. Then there's the tachometer going crazy—even when driving at a steady speed, the RPM suddenly jumps up by seven or eight hundred, but the car doesn't accelerate, as if the power is being eaten up by something. Once on the highway, I was overtaking when the transmission suddenly made a grinding noise, scaring me into immediately lifting off the throttle. If you smell burnt rubber coming from under the car or notice dark red oil stains around the transmission-engine joint, don't hesitate to get it checked. Oh, and never ignore a locked gear! I once experienced the D-gear getting stuck in third, with the engine roaring but the car refusing to speed up—turned out the solenoid valve was toast.
Last week, I just helped my cousin deal with the transmission issue on his Excelle GT. Before the problem occurred, the car made really strange noises: at low speeds when following traffic, you could hear a cyclical 'whirr—clunk' sound from the chassis, like gears grinding with sand in them. It was most noticeable when slowing down for a red light—the car would jerk a few times even when the brake was held down. Reverse gear was even more troublesome, taking two or three seconds before a loud 'clang' signaled engagement. A particularly subtle symptom was that when the oil temperature rose, during hard acceleration, the RPM would spike first, followed by a half-second delay before power kicked in, almost like a computer freezing. Later, using a diagnostic tool, we found a bunch of historical trouble codes like P0715/P0720, all indicating sensor alerts. I’d recommend paying extra attention to shift timing—if you notice that the car used to shift up to 6th gear at 40 km/h but now lingers in 3rd even at 60 km/h, it means the transmission's protection mode has been activated.
