— A General Motors transmission class action lawsuit has been certified, but only for customers in 26 states.
The GM transmission lawsuit alleges 8L45 and 8L90 8-speed transmissions have defects that cause all sorts of problems for drivers of 2015-2019 models.
According to the class action lawsuit, the 8L45 and 8L90 GM transmissions slip, buck, kick, jerk, harshly engage and shudder in these vehicles.
- 2015-2019 Chevrolet Silverado
- 2017-2019 Chevrolet Colorado
- 2015-2019 Chevrolet Corvette
- 2016-2019 Chevrolet Camaro
- 2015-2019 Cadillac Escalade and Escalade ESV
- 2016-2019 Cadillac ATS, ATS-V
- 2016-2019 Cadillac CTS
- 2016-2019 Cadillac CT6
- 2016-2019 Cadillac CTS-V
- 2015-2019 GMC Sierra
- 2015-2019 GMC Yukon
- 2015-2019 GMC Yukon XL and Yukon Denali XL
- 2017-2019 GMC Canyon
The first General Motors transmission class action lawsuit was filed in April 2019 and was followed by several more lawsuits.
- Francis v. General Motors
- Shelton v. General Motors
- Ray v. General Motors
- Duffy v. General Motors
- Gutierrez v. General Motors
Another GM transmission lawsuit was filed (Harper v. General Motors), but it was sent to arbitration.
In September 2019, the class actions were consolidated into one 900-page lawsuit.
Apparently the GM transmissions are defective only in certain states because the plaintiffs moved to certify a class action lawsuit for these states only:
Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin.
The plaintiffs assert the GM 8L45 and 8L90 8-speed automatic transmissions make the vehicles unsafe to drive because the vehicles suffer from acceleration problems.
Though the transmission class action is certified for 26 states, the consolidated lawsuit originally included claims by plaintiffs from California, Missouri and South Dakota.
But the plaintiffs from those states later decided to dismiss their claims and the judge dismissed all the counts under the laws of those three states.
The GM transmission lawsuit alleges the automatic transmission fluid (ATF) lacks “robustness to moisture,” and fails to “maintain a positive friction curve over time,” leading to “shudder” problems.
The class action asserts GM developed a different ATF formulation known as “Mod1a,” which was deployed in March 2019. However, GM allegedly chose only to replace the ATF in unsold vehicles still on dealer lots.
The automaker allegedly did not deploy the new Mod1a transmission fluid to all previously sold vehicles. The plaintiffs contend the new formula cures transmission “shudder” problems but the fluid has not been made available to customers who purchased their GM vehicles before March 1, 2019.
According to the GM transmission lawsuit, there have been various hardware and software update to fix harsh shift problems, but the design improvements were planned to deploy only in 2023 and later GM vehicles.
The GM transmission class action lawsuit is Speerly v. General Motors, LLC.
