You mean their fleet of crashed vehicles? Every single amazon owned prime van I've seen has been wrecked in one way or another, not sure those drivers are doing the rest of the job well enough to care about mechanical issues they have....
You win, you know everything. The drivers may not care, but I can assure you that Amazon does, and when it comes time to buy fleet vehicles, guess where they won't be going next time... @cav115 You should avoid reversing up hills, if you want to make the transmission last. (a little longer) Check out the below from a (public) promaster forum: Dan_G 11 posts · Joined 2020 #60 · Jun 17, 2024 Well I am certainly getting an education reading this thread. I just left the dealership to come home and educate myself on this recall. While there, I was shocked to discover that it was not as simple a fix as I had imagined. so I temporarily declined to do the recall until I figure this out. I'm in Fairfax VA. Dealership rep told me they have 4 Amazon Promasters sitting on their lot waiting for new transmissions that could take up to 4 months for delivery. "Worst case" I would have to get in line (if there is debri in the transmission). Mine is a converted camper van and is my pride and joy. Not sure how I could wait that long. Here is the kicker....my van has been flawless in the 3.5 years I have owned her. Runs well, transmission sounds solid, fluids remarkably clean after 40k. Works fine. So I left the van for an oil change and coolant flush only. Many stories out there of vans failing after visiting the dealership and perfomring the software update. I just may skip the recall. Sounds like it is a risk one way or another. I could drive until the tranny drops out then get in line I guess. Or do the update and roll the dice. I'm not a gambler. As dad used to say, if it ain't broke don't fix it. Thanks for the education from all you contributors. I'd be interested in hearing anyone else's thoughts.
It's the 6 speed that there are no replacements for. They aren't even producing them right now. Last figure I heard was something like 4,000 of the on backorder too. That being said, a lot of times it's just a solenoid pack. Why they call for a whole transmission is beyond me, but a lot of people have DIY'd it and kept on driving. The newer ones with the 9 speed (actually 7 usable) are fine so far, and a currently produced transmission. Not saying that anything Stellantis is the epitome of reliability, but I wouldn't be afraid of a newer one with the 9 speed.
You guys must live in fancy neighborhoods. All of my drivers show up in clapped out 90's domestic sedans. Color: white.
One of our fleet customers has two transits, he didn’t like the price of doing a trans fluid and filter that requires dropping the subframe. Both of his Promasters have had transmission replacements at under 100k though… I’m personally not a fan of any of the new breed vans as far as quality or design. The old school Chevy and Fords were much better vehicles.
A basic Tenet of reliability and uptime is the quantity of items that can cause a failure. Individual component reliability can be very good but the overall system reliability be poor due to the number of items and interfaces that can cause a shut down. Vehicles continue to become more complex thus decreasing overall reliability. The complexity also increases the up front cost and repair costs. It would be possible to produce safe and reliable vehicles that are simpler but complexity sells (as a group we are dumb) and the manufacturers would like for the vehicles to become unusable sooner so replacement is nessasary.
I network with 12 shops plus two dodge dealer techs.... so I do have a good portion to see. But......I said in my post...."I`m sure they exist" SO, agree to disagree.
And up until recently, I worked for the company that remanufactured all the 62TE transmissions for Stellantis... I'm enjoying my semi-retirement.
I had access to them, as I was the product engineer for the 62TE, as well as other Stellantis transmissions.
So other than the Tremec 6 speed in a Viper, does Chrysler install a good transmission? All the way back to my 96 Dodge Grand Caravan, they were saying the brand new transmission in that car fixed all the old transmission issues from the previous Chrysler products. I was hopeful, but the transmission started acting up before 80K miles and was rebuilt and went another 20-30K before giving up the ghost again.
jeez, that gave me a flashback to being stranded in Alabama while on a family roadtrip when the transmission in the minivan gave it up.
Wait, according to cav115, there are no issues with this transmission... So, I don't know what you are talking about.
They basisically have farmed out all transmissions to outside companies these days. Whether these outside company's transmission designs are any better...??? I only dealt with Chrysler legacy transmissions. (Chrysler designed)
