First car, 1997 Riv.

I'm Cam, live in Calgary, Alberta Canada, and just bought my first car. Looks great too. Should have been a happy day, and was, until recently. Beautiful condition, I think it's got virtually every option they had for 97 (is the carbon-fibre style trim a factory option, or an aftermarket kit a previous owner installed?). It's a pearl-white. Some paint damage, highway rock chips on the nose mostly, and the air-bag light comes on intermittently. Seemed pretty solid otherwise for a 12 year old car with 185,000Km on it (115,000 miles)The worst is yet to come though.

I did learn not to listen to my dad so much. I should have got the car checked out at a mechanic and carfax before I bought, I wanted to, but nooo Dad says, it'll be sold by then, buy it now, buy it now! It's hard to say no to a trusted authority figure like a father. In any case, by the end of the day the transmission was slipping, car is having a lot of trouble accelerating from a stop. Fluid level seems to be good. It's a bit intermittent, it pulled out of a parking lot OK after being parked a few minutes, then began again. Just great. Not even a full day with the car.

Anyways, I'm not happy right now, but it's nice to have a place with people who know these cars well. If it's a reasonable repair, I'll be very happy with the car. If I need a new transmission, I'll have to put it back for sale, I can't afford a new one. Currently unemployed college student. Until it started acting up, it was behaving perfectly, lots of power, everything worked, the interior is in great shape, car looks fantastic. I was loving it until about 5 minutes from the house coming back from across the city.

If you all think best, I'll post another topic in the Series II Engine & Transmission topic, after I finish searching out any similar issues and seeing the idea's and solutions other came up with. Thanks for your welcome and help. These look like well-mannered and helpful forums, a lot nicer than others I joined.

Welcome man! i honestly have no idea whats wrong with your car... post a DETAILED description and i'll happily tell you whats wrong..

Something like this happened to my Series I. Does it feel like the engine is choppy, like one split second it loses all power then gets it all back while accelerating? Bucking? If there's a service engine light, get it diagnosed asap. It could be a misfire, or, in my case, just a stupid little camshaft position sensor.

welcome!!!
if i had advice-id offer... thers alot of smart people here(& a few smart a**es too) give all u know an someone will b along soon with their thoughts and advice. good luck

No, engine seems to run fine. But when accelerating from a stop, the RPM's keep rising while the car only slowly accelerates away.

It didn't happen when I initially got the car either, or during our test drive.

First time we drove the car was last Thursday, only a short test drive, but nothing serious seemed wrong with the car at all. Yesterday is when I bought the car. I'm, using Google maps to retrace my route and get the distances driven before it started to slip.

Everything was going great for most of the day, drove it home no problem, washed it, about a 10Km run there.

Later on did a run to the local grocery store, about 5Km total there and back.

Soon as I got back home, I took my parents to one of their friends birthday parties, about 33Km. Still no problems. This was about 5Pm.

Car sat parked outside until about 9, when we left. Still managed fine until about 3Km from the house, when it began slipping and wouldn't accelerate from a stoplight. Continued this behavior at every stop until home.

My father wanted to drive it himself to see what was going on, so we took it out to Blockbusters, about 4Km there and back. Pulling out of the Blockbusters parking lot, after sitting a few minutes while we browsed, it seemed to be OK, but resumed almost immediatly afterwards, while turning back onto the road.

I might try driving it around the block a little bit, see if any warning lights pop out, the point that the car starts driving normally again, see what information I can get for you.

Thank you for your help.

I'd also like to as your opinion on something.

My father wants to put a little bit of NNL690 in the transmission. He absolutely swears by this stuff, uses it in all his heavy equipment, and all his vehicles, including his own 99 Buick Regal GS (only reason I was doing so much driving with my new car was because that Regal is having transmission problems of it's own, and is in the shop right now). All his engines run perfectly fine, and he didn't run it in the Regal's transmission (just the engine oil) so it can't be blamed for that failure. I don't believe the stuff can do any damage, I'm only doubtful as to any benefits.

The company that makes the product recommends 3-5% in engines, and 1% in automatic transmissions. My father thinks it might loosen up anything sticking and fix the problem.

Here is the link to the product: Power Up NNL 690

I'll put up a few pictures too.

If the trans. fluid is full.

Drop the pan, replace the filter, refill the fluid.

I would stop driving it until I checked/replaced the trans fluid/ filter.

Bert

hi. You'll need to be a bit more specific with the description of your trans problem. Do you have all gears? any CELs ? Does it happen at part throttle, wide open throttle or both? Do you have any shudders; which shifts are abnormal ? 1-2 2-3 3-4 or all ? how is TCC apply?
I'm sure you see where I'm going with this. Your description is too vague to be able to tell you what is wrong. Scan the car for any stored error codes and report back in a new thread in the trans section.

Check to see if it helps to start the car out in other gears than OD.

I don't think I can bring it in to be scanned today, it's a Sunday, and when I tried driving around the neighborhood, it was acting normally again, shifted smoothly, accelerated smoothly in OD, 3, 2 and 1, no CEL's, nothing out of the ordinary, at any amount of throttle (scary thing on our narrow street). I'll make the new topic when it happens again, and post back what I find. I'm sorry that I'm so vague, I don't really know all that much about cars.

You have verified the fluid is full in the trans ?

Bert

Yes, fluid levels appear to be good. I'm going to have it checked at a transmission shop tomorrow, see what they say. It doesn't appear to have any issues when the transmission is cool, it starts to slip only when it heats up, after being driven a while.

EDIT: Some pictures, as promised, something a little less depressing.

Front 3/4
Rear 3/4
Interior

Is that interior trim a factory option on these cars?

i had that same problem with my riviera only my transmission would cut out completely for a few seconds and u no what i figured out about that problem...absolutely nothing cuz i wrecked it before i could fix it :-D...hope its nothing to serious tho and welcome

Cam wrote:

Yes, fluid levels appear to be good. I'm going to have it checked at a transmission shop tomorrow, see what they say. It doesn't appear to have any issues when the transmission is cool, it starts to slip only when it heats up, after being driven a while.

EDIT: Some pictures, as promised, something a little less depressing.

Front 3/4
Rear 3/4
Interior

Is that interior trim a factory option on these cars?

That is one nice interior. Wish mine had the fiber instead of the wood. As far as I know and this is from limited time, but all complete dash kits are aftermarket and were extremely popular with the Riviera. The only true factory trim options were wood around the radio and the center console.

I had a similar issue with the transmission in my 1990 Park Ave. Ended up just being the throttle control cable, which controlled the shift points. Sadly I don't believe that the tranny in the Riviera is controlled simply by a cable for shift points. It is electronically controlled. From the sound of things the transmission itself is fine, it just sounds like a control issue. Somehow the tranny isn't getting the signal to shift. Which if I'm right will mean a cheaper repair potentially.

Thank you

As for the shifting, it can't be that, because the transmission actually shifts fine, it's more like, imagine if it was a manual, and the clutch was slipping badly, couldn't put enough force to the wheels, so the engine speeds up while the car barely moves. I know very little about automatic transmissions though, complete enigma to me, so I don't know what could be slipping in it. I believe I've got some similar symptoms as the fellow in this thread, but the 96's don't have the same transmission as the 97's, so I'm not sure if it's the same problem.

Like I said, I'm going to try to bring it in tomorrow, I haven't got any warning lights, but I'm hoping the computer will show some sort of code that will indicate a problem, before I have to pay to have the whole transmission dropped to check. If it's going to cost me a lot, I'll have to sell, and I don't want to, it's too nice a car to give up so easily.

OMG i love that Carbon Fiber.. it looks SOOOOOOOOO GOOD

your transmission problem sounds vaguely like a bad Pressure Control solenoid, mine would act up at first only when the transmission was very hot. It's worth a mention to the transmission shop - sometimes a fluid/filter change can save it, other times that's what causes it! There are two solenoids like this in the trans - the aforementioned PCS, and the TCC solenoid (Torque Converter Clutch). Unfortunately, these solenoids are extremely sensitive to any kind of crud or dirty fluid.

when i talked to a transmission guy before i ever got to fixing whatever the problem was he told me on the 95's that if u rev it over 3,000 RPM's in reverse the sprags or something will collapse and ull need a new transmission....but he said that was only on the 95's that they fixed it after that....does anybody at all no if this is possibly true?

wtf i have never heard of that. Maybe he just wanted to make you buy a rebuilt. 95's do have the weaker trannies in them 4t60e, the 96's have the 4t65e, and the 97's- 99's have the 4t65HD. What is a sprag??

My 95 took a shi*. It had a similar problem with starting and stopping, it would shudder then it heated up and didn't work at all. If you turned off the car and waited a few minutes to cool it would go away then come back, after a while it would get worse and worse and not find any gears.

99prixgt wrote:

wtf i have never heard of that. Maybe he just wanted to make you buy a rebuilt. 95's do have the weaker trannies in them 4t60e, the 96's have the 4t65e, and the 97's- 99's have the 4t65HD. What is a sprag??

My 95 took a shi*. It had a similar problem with starting and stopping, it would shudder then it heated up and didn't work at all. If you turned off the car and waited a few minutes to cool it would go away then come back, after a while it would get worse and worse and not find any gears.

Nope. 96s got the 4t60e too.

TonySmooth89 wrote:

99prixgt wrote:

wtf i have never heard of that. Maybe he just wanted to make you buy a rebuilt. 95's do have the weaker trannies in them 4t60e, the 96's have the 4t65e, and the 97's- 99's have the 4t65HD. What is a sprag??

My 95 took a shi*. It had a similar problem with starting and stopping, it would shudder then it heated up and didn't work at all. If you turned off the car and waited a few minutes to cool it would go away then come back, after a while it would get worse and worse and not find any gears.

Nope. 96s got the 4t60e too.

oops thats a typo thanks.

idunno but the guy also told me that my Riv motor was blown and i didnt believe him on that so i drove it home and drove it for prolly another 6,000 miles before i wrecked it and had i not of wrecked it im sure the motor would of lastest longer.....my tranny was jus sticking in park and when the car heated up i couldnt afford to be stopped at even a redlight or else it would over heat and nobody was ever able to fix that dam thing lol