LIM Gasket out again?

[SDalero]

Hi all:

Disgruntled owner of '02 Alero 3.4L V6, 107,000 miles. Took vehicle into the shop today for routine transmission flush/fill and was told the LIM Gasket was leaking antifreeze. I had the LIM Gasket replaced once already at a different shop around 88,000 miles and exactly two years ago. The replacement gasket set from that shop was part# MS98003T and I was told it was much better than the OE gaskets and should never leak. This shop wants to replace the LIM gasket with the same exact part# and says just from briefly looking at the gasket from the outside that they are still the older plastic ones, no metal visible. My questions are: 1) Should a gasket that has been replaced so recently need to be done again? 2) Can the shop tell what type of gasket was used just from looking at the outside of the engine?, and 3) Is it possible that the first shop took me for a ride and installed OE parts instead of the parts they said they were going to?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

[BNaylor]

Welcome to AF.

Really hard to say. The MS98003T LIM gaskets are aftermarket made by FelPro and many that use them have good results. Maybe the shop did not install them properly or used the wrong LIM bolt torque pattern and figures. But it is not uncommon to have a later LIM gasket failure whether you used the Felpro brand or OE GM. The revised GM gaskets are supposed to be metal framed. The revised FelPro are supposed to be improved over the previous versions but you may not be able tell by looking at them while installed. I can double check. We used the revised GM gaskets in our Alero per the GM TSB out and no issues to date.