Thread: life of recon'd GM Td6 gearbox?

It will last a lot longer than that if you service it every 30-40000k.
If you are towing heavy trailers put some extra cooling on it.
Look after it and there is no reason why it shouldnt do 300,000k.

Hey Leo,

you might want to send a message to bacicat2000 on this forum. I believe his car had a reco'd trans, and he had the very bad luck of it failing two days after he bought it.

Its all making me a bit worried now, as its the second reco I have heard of going within 50,000k's.

I am very lucky I guess the car I bought had a new box fitted by the dealer and not a reco, well I would hope not at a $12,600 invoice in 2010.

Hi Leo, as JSP said, I recently bought one with a 'recoed' box that was about 2 years old, and had only done 22KKM since being fitted. It broke the second day I had it.

It is now being rebuilt in Sydney by Rhys from Furious performance - the only guy I got any sense out of while researching these boxes. It looks like the people who last played with mine (no names mentioned as per forum rules, but they did tell me some porky pies as it turned out), didn't replace the torque converter, and stuffed up the machining on the pump - one of the major points of failure.

Also, be aware that the TD6 in standard form produces more HP & torque than the GM trannie was originally designed for. Add to that, LR said they were "sealed for life", and you soon realise why the boxes break at about 150KKM. Having said that, a well built box, properly maintained will last for ages. As for the warranty - most come with a 12 month warranty - the unlimited KM bit sounds ok, but the one I am having done comes with a 3 year warranty - the same as a new $14K box.

I would find out who rebuilt it, and what parts were replaced. If the torque converter wasn't replaced, and the pump wasn't rebuilt, I wouldn't touch it... (I wish I knew all this a few weeks ago...)

Rhys thinks there may have been ongoing issues with my box, hence why the previous owner unloaded it - I would check things out carefully, or haggle another $6K off the price, because this is what it will cost you if it goes bang....

Hope you get a good one, I can't wait to get mine back - it is such a beautiful car to drive (when it goes). Don't let all this put you off buying one, just do some research, and hope your homework grades turn out better than mine.

Cheers - Gav