macd7919

iTrader: (10)

You don't have to launch the car hard or take it to the drag strip to raise the trans fluid temp, the converter has a higher stall speed so when you are in traffic, or taking off from a light it still raises the temp of the trans fluid.

As I stated in closing on my previous post, maybe it was time for yours to go, but I have installed enough of them and personally know too many people running them in this particular application to warrant the failure of 1 converter with 50k miles on it a justified reason to tell people it's a bad product.

I think you may have misunderstood/misread my last post. I was responding to DumpedGs about his comment on restalled OEM converters, not implying your stall was abnormally high. I should have been clearer about who I was speaking to.

As I mentioned before, it is unfortunate yours failed but I don't think it's fair to imply something is junk when it lasted you 50k, not to mention the fact that there are hundreds of PI's stalls out there for every one that fails.

tomtnc

I'm glad you've had good luck with your PI converters. I have not, and there have been more than a handful of people on CL who have not if you do a search on the subject (re: CEL shift solenoid codes, etc.) As a former engineer who worked for a Tier 1 automotive supplier, I completely understand the mechanical / fluid function of a torque converter and typical failure modes. Everything else being equal, a 2800 rpm stall converter doesn't raise the trans temp significantly enough to be a mode of premature failure at 50K miles, especially when combined with a transmission cooler. I'm going to guesstimate that there have been at least 5 failures per 200 converters sold on CL; that is a lousy quality record when you consider most of the converters sold to members of this site are "tame" sub-3000 rpm stall converters. You have stated your opinion and I have stated mine regarding quality and durability expectations from an aftermarket torque converter. However, it is factually incorrect to claim a 2800 rpm stall converter (especially when combined with a proper transmission cooler) increases trans temps signficantly enough to be a failure mode at 50K miles.

macd7919

iTrader: (10)

What do you consider a failure? I'm assuming you aren't referring to the Gs430 CEL issue as that is a well known problem with this particular application and isn't a failure.

As a fellow engineer, I'm sure if you took a step back and looked at the fact that you yourself guesstimated a 3% failure rate across the board for these converters (especially since there is no way to quantify the maint records for these converters) than you really can't justify saying the product is garbage. Being trained as an engineer you should be fully aware of all the variables to take into account and how unfounded this whole thing sounds to another engineer when you claim that the product is sub par.

How many cars have bearings or sensors that go bad out of a million? How many cars have recalls? At 3% that would be 30,000 failures out of a million, would you then consider that part to be garbage even though it was reliable on 970,000 other vehicles? SO does that mean that the model line isn't any good because 3% experienced problems?

I'm not trying to get into a pissing match over this as everyone has their own opinions but I think trying to give PI a bad rep based on the info given is a little much. I don't have any ties to PI but as I said before I don't think in this circumstance it's justified to tell people not to buy there product because it only lasted you 50k miles, which would probably be what? Almost 4 years of daily driving with a little bit of hard driving sprinkled in?