In a reminder of the dark days of 2008, GM did put its Strasbourg, France, transmission plant up for sale. GM had tried to sell the plant in the crisis year of 2008. Not able to find a buyer, GM decided to keep it. Now, GM wants to unload the plant again.
Officially, GM “is conducting a comprehensive strategic review of its Strasbourg (France) transmission operations for potential sale. The review includes both the manufacturing plant and the engineering and product development operations.”
After GM had bought the plant back for one euro in 2010 from a liquidator, workers agreed to a two-year wage freeze in return for job guarantees.
GM does not feel that it is reneging. “There are commitments in place to continue manufacturing the transmissions for the next several years,” GM spokesman Jim Cain told Reuters.
Approximately 1,000 people are employed in the Strasbourg operations. Last year, the plant produced approximately 280,000 six-speed automatic transmissions, mostly for customers outside of Europe.
Divesting French liabilities now is so rational that it is out of character for GM.
French-built 6-speed automatic transmissions. Now THAT explains a lot !
The beauty of your comment is it works both ways – the transmission is prone to either *RETREATING* into a higher gear, or *RETREATING* into a lower gear. ;)
*rimshot*
I’d hazard it coming down to site ergonomics. I’ll guess GM sees little future potential. Perhaps they have a more robotic site in the pipeline or maybe they want to outsource?
My mother’s 2004 330i ZHP had one of these great units that made it all the way to 60k miles before giving up, thank goodness for CPO warranty!
But does that reflect on the plant & workforce? If it’s just a lousy design even the masters who hand build the GT-R engines won’t be able to build one to last. If this transmission was built to GM standards I immediately question whether it ever had a chance to survive behind your engine.
I think you guys got it wrong. GM has traditionally designed good reliable automatic transmissions while extracting cost savings from the cheesy plastic dash division and lowest price part suppliers.
I am not sure why GM of France transmissions seem to be of poor quality. May be the bean counters, lack of engineering, assembly, etc.
Nonetheless, I would recommend checking for a ZF unit over the GM one for any potential buyers…or going for a manual! “Lifetime” fluid certainly can’t help either.
Part of this is more BMW than GM. GM utilizes the 6L50E in all of its V6 RWD cars; however they build BMW a specfic 6L45E with reduced torque capacity (omitting 1-2 clutches from certain drums and fewer pinions on the planetary gears), despite the engine it will eventually go behind having essentially equal power. The 6L50E seems to last well in GM cars, but the 45 not so much…
You used to see this all the time among different trim levels of cars that had different engines, but the same drivetrain behind them. It always seems like the most pathetic cost cutting measure, considering a few steels and frictions cost pennies at most and the cost of tooling a second version of all the weaker components.
That has been my impression too. GM’s vehicles are not the best by far, but their automatic transmissions have been reasoneably reliable…
But then, this perception may be related to simple 4-speed autos with torque converters. A 6-speeder with dual clutches is another ballgame that they may have not yet mastered. And I would blame the design first, workmanship later.
This isn’t a dual clutch automatic, it’s a normal torque converter unit. Also, GM id using the 6L45E inthe new ATS, so the same decontented tranny they sell to BMW is going into their BMW fighter. Ironic.
Maybe somebody at GM assumed that significant BMW revenue is coming from the repair of failed GM-supplied transmissions.
FWIW the picture is Allison 1000s (diesel pickup) on the dock at the Baltimore plant.
I think you guys got it wrong. GM has traditionally designed good reliable automatic transmissions……..
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George, you owe me a keyboard for that one, my old one is completely drenched with the coffee I spit out.
Just a few transgressions:
700R4
4L60E
THM200
4T60
The 700R4 and 4L60E have been known to live very reliably behind some serious street rods and are considered by most to be bullitproof. I know many a 700R4/4L60E is pushing around all sorts of offroad beasts (my friends FJ80 Trail rig with a 5.3 swapped in for one) in some very serious enviornments. I have always been a Ford guy when it comes to domestics, but even most Panther owners I think would agree that GM automatics are the bees knees. They certainly put all those AOD derivivitives to shame. I wish I could get one behind my Toyota straight 6. Yes, the A442 is bombproof, but it takes a whole lot of power to turn it. I remember the GM autos as fairly efficient in this regard. Check out a drag strip on Friday night. Yeah many are the old school 3 speeds and powerglides, but youll see a lot of the 4 speed OD units as well, espically on the cars folks drive more than a quarter mile at a time.