Adding to the list of complaints about the 2016 Chevy Colorado transmission.

Honestly thought it was a problem with low octane fuel at first so I ran the 89 octane for a while thinking that would solve the issue (which it didn't of course). As everyone else has stated, the vehicle has a hard time finding the correct gear when slowing down to take a turn or a yield and then accelerating back up to speed. Most noticeable around 20 mph but has also happened frequently during stop and go type traffic. Gas pedal gets almost a dead weight feel to it and if I stomp on it the truck will lurch forward to catch up.

This is my first Chevy and I was really excited to get this truck. Very disappointed to see all the notes in the forums all the way back to 2016 and find out there is no software fix available from the manufacturer.

I purchased my '16 Colorado new in April of 2016, and immediately liked everything about it with the exception of one thing! The transmission is totally worthless!!! Since then I've limped along, trying to adjust my driving habits (very normal and conservative), to accommodate this software controlled nightmare! I've had it at the dealership three times since, twice for regular oil change services, and once just for the trans issues. I've complained "every" time about the trans issues and to no avail and without solution. I'm at 9,225 miles now, and have made another appointment for it at the dealer for the same issues outlined by all the other folks on this site with the same problems. Except for this: a couple of days ago my cute little truck almost killed my wife and I!!!

We were on a busy frontage road preparing to enter an equally busy expressway. The car in front of me was not going to enter the on-ramp and was going about 20 mph. I tapped my brakes slowing for him, and then proceeded to enter the on-ramp. As I entered I pressed onto the accelerator to speed up and blend with the oncoming traffic. Well folks, we are still here and alive, but only by the grace of God!! My little red truck had decided not to shift or do anything in the way of moving on and we were nearly hit by a number of cars, horns honking, rubber burning, swerving to miss us, and I couldn't do anything!!! My little red truck had just decided to lay down like an old lazy hound dog and do nothing!!! Suffice it to say, we have a lot more silver hair now, and upon arrival home changed our underwear.

I'm thinking seriously about trading it but you know how that will turn out. Trading a nice, low mile truck like mine will be a loser deal. If I do though, it won't be to buy another Chevy.

OK, JUST OVER A YEAR NOW, AND STILL NO FIX. I HAVE TAKEN IT TO THE DEALER NUMEROUS TIMES. I HAVE HAD THE DATA RECORDER IN TWICE AND COULDN'T GET IT TO CAPTURE AN ISSUE. THE REASON IS IT'S A SOFTWARE ISSUE. THE HILL ASSIST IS THE ISSUE AND UNFORTUNATELY IT IS BUILT IN. I WOULDN'T HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THIS FEATURE IF IT WASN'T A DEATH TRAP. IT ALMOST GOT ME IN AN ACCIDENT A NUMBER OF TIMES. NEVER A GREAT FEELING GOING 70MPH AND THE VEHICLE DECIDING IT'S NOT GOING TO STOP. OR DOWN A HILL AND THE TIRES SPINNING AS I AM PRESSED ALL THE WAY ON THE BRAKE AND THE TRUCK STILL REVVING FORWARD. THE DEALER IS USELESS BECAUSE THEY SAY THAT UNLESS IT CODES THERE ISN'T ANYTHING THEY CAN DO. I HAVE VIDEO SHOWING THE ISSUE AND I'VE SENT THEM COMPLAINT AFTER COMPLAINT FROM OTHERS SHOWING I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE. I'VE SENT A COMPLAINT TO GM AND NOTHING BACK YET. AND SENT A COMPLAINT TO 3 ON YOUR SIDE AS WELL. I THINK IT'S GOING TO TAKE A JOINT LAWSUIT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY. PLEASE HELP BY ALL COMPLAINING TO GM VIA PHONE SO THAT WE ALL HAVE CASE NUMBERS. THIS VEHICLE SCARES ME EVERY TIME I GET IN IT AND SHOULDN'T HAVE TO FEEL THIS WAY.

Ugh! I can't take it anymore with this truck!

It's one thing to have an issue with your car its another to have your vehicle have a major issue and have Chevy say oh well too bad for you.. The transmission with this truck is unbelievable..

Growing up as a kid my family had a Chevy Silverdao crew cab it was amazing and ended up being my first vehicle as a teen. My husband grew up in a Chevy suburban and it was a great vehicle. So it was only fitting that we were brand loyal and overjoyed to provide a Chevy truck for our family. Boy were we stupid for thinking that!! All the complaints on here about what the transmission is doing is exactly the same for us.. Imagine buying this car as the family vehicle and then three months down the road not being able to put your kids in the car for fear of a crash because of how terrible is runs.. We have been working with a lemon law layer for months now and still getting no where. The dealership throws all those tsb's in our face as they kick our ass out the door..

Sad truth is, all of us that bought these have no protection or bright light to a resolve because anytime there is a complaint on this vehicle they get their people to write another tsb.. I'd just like my money back so i can buy something else but i have so much anxiety now about this happening with the next car and even worse anytime i see a Colorado on the road I feel sick inside..

Chevy lawyer says they want the dealership to verify problem and attempt a repair to do a buy back, dealership says well there is a tsb saying what they have verified is happening is a normal characteristic of the car. It makes me sick.. 131 tsb's!!!!! And yet this car has no recall happening?! If we went to trial it would be a year from now, and even then we would be putting this in the hands of people who might not know anything about the car or might think were just trying to get out of a payment... It's depressing to have all this on my mind night and day, I can't think of anything else..

I wish you all luck on your journeys with this because we all have a rough road ahead of us at this point.. I'm thankful for carcomplaints because at least I can see were not alone. And I wish I had seen the first few complaints last June before we bought it..

Bought this 2016 Chevrolet Colorado Z71.....Having exact same problems everyone else seems to be mentioning.....I have taken it to the Dealer twice now....no one seem to know what i was explaining or talking about...they test drove the vehicle......how can you not notice what the truck was doing??? The Problems are very obvious...it's bad I have had to research this on my own...but its also good to know that I am not the only one dealing with all these issues....just looking to see if anyone has a solution to the problems. Very poor acceleration, hesitates like it wants to stall, the shifting is horrible. It shifts hard occasionally. The down shift, the upshift, everything is weird. AGGRAVATED!!!

Transmission doesn't shift properly, takes too long to react to acceleration, then makes up for it by upshifting twice. Takes a long time to upshift after downshifting. For example, I slow down to take a corner, when I have turned and start to push the pedal, the transmission takes too long to react. This is dangerous because sometimes you need to adjust your speed to avoid an accident. Also, it is inconsistent and therefore can be dangerous when you expect the truck to do something, but it does not react the way it has before. Also, when it overcompensates for the time, it creates a 'bang', I can only describe as it would be like someone tapped you on the back bumper while you were driving.

I am adding my weight to this common complaint that I read here, that the 2016 Colorado does not downshift properly when more torque is required like going up (even small) hills. This is been happening also to me pretty much since I bought my pickup in the fall of 2015 but fortunately most of my driving is freeway so I'm not as affected as others are. Plus I'm learning to put the auto transmission more often into manual shift (or driver-assisted shift) mode which is the "M" position on the console. This way you have near instant control of the downshifting.

Best is to put it in "M" when coming out of park or neutral; the problem I've found with switching to "M" mode during driving is that, contrary to how I would design it, this immediately causes the transmission to downshift, at least in my experience, and races the engine when you're not ready for it yet. I would prefer that switching to "M" keeps it in the same gear but simply enables the mode, and then the driver can use the thumb rocker switch to downshift/upshift from there.

Basically I love the look and features of this pickup and the mileage on freeway but I've identified several things, including this transmission issue plus some accessory nuisances, that to me are all related to faulty programming of the CPU. For instance I'm the guy who's iPod mini got destroyed by the USB port (see other complaint), and my iPod touch is working fine but every now and then the audio system forgets it's plugged in to the USB when starting the engine and I have to unplug and replug it, and this does not always work. My point is this transmission issue could perhaps be fixed with a "simple" code upgrade which says to never let the RPM go below 1400 (or whatever) when the gas pedal is engaged. I, like many of you, are bewildered to see our engines lug around 1000 and we're stepping on the gas!

Overly simple bottom line: GM could employ some better programmers and beta tester drivers before releasing their software to the factory floor.

I wish I had read about the Colorado transmission problems on this web site before I bought my new truck!! The transmission will not smoothly downshift. I stays in high gear (6th) all the way down to less than 1000 rpm. When you try to accelerate it bucks and almost stalls. If you stomp on the accelerator it downshifts and jerks forward.

I called the dealer at about 1,000 miles and told them about it. They said "it will get better with time" ---- NOT! I had them check it further at the first service visit and they all was normal -- NOT!! I then called Chevy customer service and they said a fix was being developed and they would confirm my call with an email --- NOT!!

Based upon the large number of complaints reported online I certainly hope that Chevy has a fix planned. In the meantime driving this truck is a PITA!

Update from May 4, 2016: I filed a formal complaint with the NHTSA and urge everyone else having the same problem to do so. There dozens of people experiencing the same issue with the 2015 and 2016 Colorado/Canyon trucks. This is what I filed with the NHTSA --- "The transmission does not downshift from a high gear (5 or 6) to a lower gear when slowing down from 45 mph to 20 mph (or lower). When the accelerator is depressed to accelerate the engine bucks, vibrates, and does not accelerate. The engine rpm drops to 1,000 rpm or lower. If the accelerator is quickly floored the transmission downshifts several gears lower and jerks forward. This condition happens primarily on secondary roads while driving along the road AND when pulling from one road into traffic on another road. The situation when pulling into traffic is dangerous because the truck does not accelerate as it should. This truck was purchased new and has 6,500 miles on it. This condition has been present since the truck was new and the severity varies with truck speed and road inclination. The situation has been reported to the dealer and to Chevrolet Customer Service. No corrective actions have yet to be made."

Thought it was just us - took our 2016 Chev Colorado V6 for oil change and complaint about its annoying shifting between 20 - 55 mph - they have had it for 3 weeks and now say its the way we drive. We call BS as it hadn't started doing it until 4500 miles and the loaner they gave us (Colorado 4cyl) doesn't do it (yet) they said it has a different set up. The dealer is saying there is no fix for it or design issue at this time - If you can drive 60 mph everywhere its great if Not you will Hate this Design Feature!!! We are trying to figure out how to get our money back or wonder if the new Colorado with the 4 cyl turbo diesel would have the same issues? We are hoping Chevrolet comes up with a solution as we really like the truck otherwise - If anyone is considering buying this truck wait till they fix this problem!

sluggish shifting and using too high a gear

So I love almost everything about my V6 2016 Colorado except driving it. Which is a problem.

I've seen many posts on this and other sites that describe my problem exactly, so I'm adding my own post so it gets reported from at least one more owner.

The engine has power if you really mash the accelerator, but just driving around town trying to be light on the gas results in too high a gear and low RPMs and often a chugging when trying to accelerate out of a corner or up a slight hill until it finally downshifts... but it takes so long to do that it then has shift down 2 gears and you lurch forward all of a sudden. Not only makes driving uncomfortable but I'm betting eats more gas than if it had downshifted a lot earlier in the first place. It feels like it has been tuned for maximum fuel economy at the expense of everything else, which is also disappointing considering in city driving I get a few mpg less than I did in my old 2000 Silverado with a V8.

Hoping Chevrolet officially recognizes the problem and does something about it besides telling folks "it just has to learn your driving style." I have put almost 3500 miles on it and the problem has not gotten any better. It's due for it's first oil change so I will ask my dealer about it and curious to see what they say.