My H3 had 4x4 "motor(?)" replaced one week after I bought it. Since few months ago, I heard grinding noise from front end. Local mechanic found lot of noise coming from franfercase and recommended transfercase inspection and repair form a transmission shop.
My H3 has been sitting in the transmission shop for one week plus now. The transmission shop replaced worn out plastic fork. This made noise lower for one day and noise got worse next day and returned H3 to the shop again.

The transmission shop said that they have been getting wrong parts from GM (according to them, 3 times wrong now) because my H3 has diffirent transfercase than what the VIN number of my H3 calls for.

Is it possible for GM to substitute transfercase when it was manufactured? Or the dealer who replaced actuator motor replaced transfercase without telling owner? Or the transmission shop is blaming GM for their incompetence?

The dealer gave me option of taking my car to somewhere else with refund. What should I do?

 

Crazy as it sounds, he may be telling the truth. Personal experience is GM sent the wrong part twice for my roof moldings, once the wrong piece all together, once 2 right sides. I recently read someon else's post with a similar "wrong part" story in it. Just my opinion but it seems a little like GM just doesn't have the same attention for detail now that they successfully killed the Hummer brand. Not sure what I would do in your situation. Taking it to a different place would start the diagnosis all over again and your ride may be down even longer.

 

maybe, sounds like you have alot more problems than you think

 

like it might have got a few miles on it in a lok mode while fork was broken,,previous owner??

i remember pics of stripped gears here a while back

 

Since I bought year 2006, I am having nothing but problems with this car. Can 2006 H3 have newer transfercase ..ie. 2009 or newer model year ...?
What is normal life expectancy of Transfercase?

Thanks in advance.

 

Since I bought year 2006, I am having nothing but problems with this car. Can 2006 H3 have newer transfercase ..ie. 2009 or newer model year ...?
What is normal life expectancy of Transfercase?

Thanks in advance.

 

Sounds like you may have more going on than just the transfer case, especially if they've already been into it to replace the fork. If you still have problems with the transfer case I'd question their competence, because they missed something the first time they were into it.

It is possible that you have other issues, in which case you probably need to find some one more competent to troubleshoot your problem.

I think that it is unlikely that gm substituted a transfer case especially considering that the shop has confirmed that you had the plastic shift fork, which is a known problem with the transfer case that gm used in the H3. That problem was resolved somwhere in mid 07 while still using the same transfer case.

It is possible that the whole transfer case was replaced but it is highly unlikely that it was replaced with anything but what came in the H3. I say this because the only really viable options for tcases in the H3 would be possibly one from a Colorado/Canyon pickup or possibly one from something like the Trailblazer. Everything else that GM makes still has a driver side drop tcase which makes it practically unusable in the H3. Another problem with swapping the Tcase is that the computer has to be reprogrammed to operate the case if you change it (this apparently needs to be done even between the borg warner 4494 and the 4493 which are the two cases that were used in the H3, only difference being the gear ratio in low range) so the possibilty that your H3 has any transfer case but what came in the H3 stock is very remote.

I would take it somewhere else and see what they say.

 

Thank you very much for timely answer. Last night, mechanic called me and they replaced some bushing in the transfercase but he told me the noise is still their and he wants to take look at transmission and transfercase again. By not having any idea about what he said, I told him to proceed. 24 hours after this afternoon, he told me " he is with national help line on the phone to help him with diagnosis. I have no idea transfer case and transmission can be that hard for even self claimed "transmission specialist". Or do I need to find someone better to work on my car?