Westgate Chevrolet had my Avalanche ready on Friday, so I packed up the dog and headed for Amarillo Friday night and picked it up Saturday morning.  Before leaving I made sure to ask the service advisor if the tech had road tested the truck.  I didn’t want to get a couple of miles down the road and have the “new” transmission die on me.  Considering I had to drive 340 miles back home, it was only prudent to be a little distrustful.  And when you add in the fact that the “new” transmission was what GM euphemistically calls a SRTA (Service Replacement Transmission Assembly; double-speak for “rebuilt”) I was a bit concerned.  Unfortunately, it’s in the terms of the warranty that they can do this.  I know the bean-counters like rebuilt parts, but customers almost universally loathe them.  I wonder if GM has ever really given any thought to customer goodwill in this area?  Granted, they didn’t hassle me on getting the truck fixed or getting a rental car (total costs for repairs and rental: $0¹ ).  Still, putting in rebuilt parts doesn’t inspire confidence, regardless of whether it’s still covered by warranty.  In the end, you’re still getting something that’s already failed at least once.

Anyhow, all seems to be OK so far.  Once I got on 287 I put it on cruise-control at 70 and watched the tachometer frequently for any signs of over-revving or sluggishness.  I couldn’t detect any signs of the problem, and the shifts were regular and smooth² (mostly you could only tell the shift points by the tach needle, as the electronic controls on the Avalanche usually deliver very smooth shifts).

Still, once a vehicle has a major episode (anything that results in towing), you never quite trust it the same way again.  It’s bad enough that I’m already an automotive hypochondriac (What’s that sound?  What was that vibration?).  Now I’m going to be watching the tach all the time and expecting the transmission to explode at any moment. 

¹  It’s too bad they don’t allow “incidental” expenses, since I spent three nights in hotels and made an extra trip to and from Amarillo.  All that nonsense isn’t cheap.

²  Except for the cruise control on hills.  It gets impatient on steep hills and kicks down HARD.  If I’m going to be in hilly terrain, I typically turn off cruise control and do it myself, since I can usually do it without having to kick it down if I take advantage of previous hills (I will also tolerate a little more loss of speed going uphill to avoid kicking it down).