1999 S-10 Transmission woes

Last year around this time I was experiencing some severe problems with the transmission on my 99' Chevrolet S-109 (automatic transmission). Apparently, a piece of the transmission came off inside and shredded some kind of casing. This problem was accompanied by a rattling sound, an occasional jerking kind of surge when accelerating from 10-15 mph, and a "sticking" of the shifting from one gear to "passing" gear at speeds over 40-50 mph (even just tapping the accel).

Well, I had my transmission replaced last year by a Chevy dealership with a refurb. $3000 for that and some other, unrelated maintenance (the tranny itself was about 2.3k).

Now fast foward, a year later. My wife reported to me that earlier in the week she was driving my truck to work, when it seemed to "stick", and pushing the pedal all the way down to the floor revved the engine, but didn't increase the speed of the vehicle.

I was just driving my S-10 on the interstate at 70 mph this morning. I slowed down to 65 for a second, then tried to speed back up to 70. Suddenly, I was experiencing what my wife did earlier in the week. When I had to slow down to 55, then I couldn't speed up beyond 55. The engine seemed like it just couldn't make the car accelerate.. or that was the feeling I got. I stopped on the side of the road for a second, then tried to start off again. The car accelerated then, but slowly (up a slight hill), to around 30-40 mph. It was barely able to maintain this speed.

I knew there was a Chevy dealership nearby, so I drove it in and dropped it off.

Is my tranny dying? Is my fuel system going wierd? What can I do?

As an additional consideration, I believe my 1 year warranty on the replacement tranny I had expired a couple of days ago. Do I have ANY recourse or any way to negotiate with the dealer to give me a break? I can't pay $2000 again to replace my transmission again... I'd rather just trade my truck in for a Toyota :P

Also, the "Surging" and "sticking" I mentioned earlier has been occuring to both my 98 and later my 99 Chevy S-10. There's no easily discernable pattern, and there's no way to force it to do it. The surging and sticking usually occur at the same time, though... so most likely have the same root cause.

Let me know your thoughts. Thanks.

could it be a u-joint, rather than the tranny this time? get under your truck and try to turn your driveshaft with your hand. if there is more than a micron or two of play then you have a u-joint going bad.

I just had my 95 Sonoma in the shop for a trans. They replaced it with a rebuilt trans out of another truck. And for about a week it was kinda better but still felt like it was slipping in higher RPM's so I took it back and they said there was deffinetely a problem so they took the trans apart and had to replace the valve body. So it sounds like your problem too. I could be wrong but that's what happened to me. Like on the freeway if I took 3 or 4 miles I could make it up to 80, but if I stomped on the gas and the trans went into passing gear the engine would rev up to red line but the truck wouldn't go any faster. Hope this helps.