Okay...it's true my truck is a little over 10 years old and most of the miles are "in-town" (mainly because it makes so many odd noises we rarely would take it on the highway), but it has just over 48,000 gentle miles. A transmission should last longer than that, or the company should be willing to step up and admit that they screwed up big time.

Late night, downtown, and with essentially no warning (just a whining noise), the truck suddenly won't move when put in reverse. In forward it will go, but over-revs, hitting about 3500 rpm before making a jerky shift (skipping second gear). The problem is a broken star gear, a cup shaped part that Chevy apparently made from recycled beer cans. As a result, it either cracks or strips out, but you really don't care which since either problem means you no longer can go in reverse without "manual labor" (a push) and half of the forward gears don't work.

The "good" news is that you don't need a new transmission but only to replace the gear (using a beefed up part so it doesn't happen again), but the bad news is this is only saves you about $600 (and you're still out $1800 or so). The only advantage to the repair is that there are a couple of other weak spots in these transmissions that the shop can fix while it's out.

Bottom line--run away from a 2002 Chevy S-10 2WD pickup with the automatic transmission. Or maybe any Chevy S-10, as I'm also looking at replacing all four shocks and have already had to have the front brakes redone (at 40K??). My import sedan has over 115K and is still going strong--hopefully the quality of domestic vehicles has improved in the last 10 years, but I'm not sure I'm willing to risk it!

Chevy's are the best trucks by far until !!!!!!! I was backing up in my driveway when i noticed

my transmission started slipping. so i took it to a reputable mechanic. first of all he told me that i wasn't the first complaint.then he said all i needed was the filter replaced. he fixed it??? NOT cost me $350.00 ouch!! three weeks later it happened again.so i replaced the filter myself yes a woman! and it worked great up until may the reverse went out completely !!!! the cheapest used transmission i could find was $650.00 BIG OUCH!!!

I cant afford to rebuild it because every mechanic that sees a woman (ME) thinks I have stupid tattooed on my for head BIG NOT!!! then i find out that there may have been a recall on these transmissions ???? because of what they said was soft gears i think it is a shame that chevrolet could build such bulls**t now every body wants an arm and a leg to fix it . My problem is i am a single mother of two putting one through college without any help. and another in the fourth grade. chevrolet needs to take care of the problems.and stop wasting money on vacation pay and bonuses for the morons in the corporate office.