I have a feeling you guys are about to become my new best friends...

[TimE]

2007 Aveo5 Owner here. Bought her straight off the lot. And for the most part I've been pretty happy with my little roller skate. Yeah, the mileage stinks for such a small car. Yeah, it collects a scratch or dent if you look at it wrongly. Yeah, it is cheaply built--heck I only paid $8400 and change (as a loss leader) new off the lot in 2007--it has treated me pretty well for the past 84,000 miles. Hard to scoff at $.10/mile transportation! I love it for parking downtown or zipping about easily. Sure, I have to explain to many kids how to manually roll the windows down and remind them to lock the doors, but they eventually figure it out. For $8400 I was glad to have all four wheels AND a spare!

There have been a few problems: door handle screws backing themselves out..., interior trim popping free here/there. Then I've had a right front strut blow out that the local repair place wanted $500+ to fix (declined, it's noisy but drives fine...) Then I went car camping with the Aveo.


I'm presuming that somewhere along the 15-20+ miles of unpaved gravel roads it fell out. Or, it could have happened somewhere else along the life of the car, who knows...but the hole/mount looked clean when I checked, so this was probably recent event. The "It" is referring to the lower of the three ($8.64) trans-axle mount bolts. This was without my knowledge, but put theories together after the fact... Apparently everything was still humming along nicely even though it was missing, however, after failing to avoid ONE pothole when the light was playing tricks on me, there was a pronounced THUNK. And then things got bad.

When ever I applied power from the engine the manual stick lurched forwards. First, Third and Reverse would not even stay in gear but for a moment to get things moving. I limped along home up/down miles more of graveled roads out of the wilderness only to roll into a dealer and find that in light of the missing the support of the lower bolt, the middle bolt tore the top of the transmission clear off--it was hanging there by a single bolt & the engine. There should be no reason for one of these bolts to be missing in the first place, but it is horrific to find that now I have to replace the $1881.00 transaxle (dealer price for just the parts.)


Thankfully, I didn't require a tow out of the wilderness, but I did have to tow it 340 miles home (thanks U-Haul!) It is sitting peacefully in my garage waiting for me to pull it apart. Sounds like I'll be doing a clutch, timing belt & strut and brakes while I'm at it...and then just before we left I get the Recall Notice about the ignition issue. UGH! Even still, I'm pretty happy with that little car...now to get to work.

Glad to have found a forum like this...I suspect we'll be chatting in the near future. I welcome your suggestions and guidance on next steps. I'm planning to undertake this in my garage so I would welcome any and all input. I've done exactly ONE auto engine rebuild in my life and actually counted it a success when I got it running again--it was not on the Aveo. Thanks in advance for all your recommendations.

[RicochetRandy]

Well hey there! I'm glad you're as excited as I am to be part of this community!

Please, do feel free to ask any questions at all at any time, we're all happy to help keep Aveos on the road, and their owners enjoying them!

You'd mentioned screws backing themselves out! You might try some thread lock to help with that, just pop in to your local hardware store and they'll fix you up!

As for the transmission, it's an Aisin 81-40LE, (assuming it's an automatic) and a D16 (assuming manual) in the event that that might help you find one at a better price point; ~$1,800 would be just over 1/3 your car's value!

Good luck, happy driving!

[TimE]

Thanks Randy!

You'd mentioned screws backing themselves out! You might try some thread lock to help with that, just pop in to your local hardware store and they'll fix you up!

Right...I just wish they had done this for all the appropriate screws on the vehicle. They should have done that for us in the first place!

As for the transmission, it's an Aisin 81-40LE, (assuming it's an automatic) and a D16 (assuming manual) in the event that that might help you find one at a better price point; ~$1,800 would be just over 1/3 your car's value!

Yeah, I have the manual version. Yes, I've been quoted in the $1800-2800 range to replace just the transmission. Then there is the whole list of other things that need to be addressed. If the rest of the vehicle wasn't in such good condition and fun to drive I'm not sure I'd commit to the expense. That, and I don't think I could replace it with an equivalent ride for the same money--money I didn't want to spend right now.

My hope is to do this myself & use this as a learning opportunity/project with my 12 year old son. Hopefully, give him some good life skills along the way!

[petrified.rabbit]

imho and since you would be replacing it if it didn't work anyhow. Before pulling the transmission to fix this. I would first check a few things.

first, is the transmission leaking any fluids or have and transmission case damage other than a stripped bolt hold, or cracked thread casting or whatever?

second are the two other bolt holes intact?

third if two of the bolts will go in properly to allow you to bolt the transmission back in place. you could, (and I say this as i would do it to my own car, but not to a customer, but i know it would work) but you could put the two bolts in place, and then put the broken bolt in with teflon tape then jbweld around the threads. if it threads in at all, great, if not you need to hold it tight. then when the jb weld hardens, you should be able to tighten it (thanks to the teflon tape). NOT a dealer/shop repair but might only cost you $20 to fix.

the fact is the two bolts should almost hold it well enough anyhow. i would agree with locktite blue or something on those.



on a side note, when i bought my car, and did my first oil change, all but one of the bell housing bolts had backed out about 1/2" including one of those lower mount bolts.

[TimE]

Thanks for the reply Petrified!

first, is the transmission leaking any fluids or have and transmission case damage other than a stripped bolt hold, or cracked thread casting or whatever?

Uh. So that's the thing... the top of the transaxle housing is actually sheared off (with the 2nd bolt still in there) so gears/oil/etc are open to the wind...

second are the two other bolt holes intact?

On the transmission casing? The lower one does appear to be intact/not obstructed (i.e. nothing sheared-off in the casing, it just fell out.) The next one up is the one that ripped the aluminium casing open, so much as I believe in JBWelds powers, I think we're past that point. And looking at the documentation, there are actually TWO more bolts on the upper side (but I've only visually inspected one when it was on the lift.)

on a side note, when i bought my car, and did my first oil change, all but one of the bell housing bolts had backed out about 1/2" including one of those lower mount bolts.

Disturbing. I'd expect a slightly more liberal application of locktite all around the vehicle or at least torquing things down with care.

Thanks again for the reply/suggestions... Thanks to this forum I'm already collecting my orders with rockauto.com AND I've discovered other issues that were pending I was unaware of (air intake tube is torn.)

[2010AveoLT]

Thanks for the reply Petrified!

Uh. So that's the thing... the top of the transaxle housing is actually sheared off (with the 2nd bolt still in there) so gears/oil/etc are open to the wind...

so in other words, it tore a chunk out of the Transaxle Casing.

[TimE]

so in other words, it tore a chunk out of the Transaxle Casing.

Sadly, you are correct.

[camopaint0707]

welcome to the forum

[petrified.rabbit]

it looks like you can find a lower mileage transmission on car-part.com for about $300 in your area..

[gothstone]

From what your describing I would be damn tempted to just change the clutch place and disk (since your there anyway), replace the busted bell housing and bolts with one from a junk yard (probably about $100 if the whole transaxle is going for $300) and hope. If the tranny is torn up you can get the rest of it from the junk yard, but it sounds like it would be ok.