When did your AW4 break? Or did it?

With all our strokers, lifts, large tires, and mud covered trans coolers, we put a little bit of strain on our autos. My current one has 270k, my first one had 250k. Only issue was a faulty TCC (torque converter clutch). I am wondering how many miles does everyone have on their autos, and the ones that have failed how many miles were on them and what were you doing when they failed? Also, has anyone in a Jeep ever broken the 2nd gear sprag?

ive probably overheated mine a lot

with a oil cooler meant for a motorhome.

and ive had a torque converter go bad (dunno how, but it was knockin like a bastid)

other than that no issues.

my butt dyno made me think mine was slipping before, but then i compared it to other similarly built rigs and it felt fine

I had 300k when I junked my XJ.

I gave the AW4 to someone else.

When I first got it, it was in a 2-dr with 180k and black fluid.

When I swapped it into my second XJ it had ~240k on it and I changed the filter/fluid (emptied the TC too).

Went another 60k without a hiccup. Constant rev limiter, no regard for the temperature (I had an explorer cooler on it) and I would rock it back and forth without waiting for the tires to stop spinning.

Mine has 189K on it...knock on wood it seems perfect. Shifts firm every time.

My friend's daughter lost hers at 305K about 2 months ago...she 'rented' mine from me for a week while hers was replaced.

bought my 96 at 107k... it was lurching a little already. I knew it was on its way out and got a spare, then said f it and towed a trailer to new jersey and back in overdrive with no apparent effect (though I'm sure it hastened its demise.) Got worse when I lifted it and put 32s on it, would randomly slip so bad I had to shut it off for a minute or two to get it to move again. Replaced it at about 145k, when I opened it up the pan was full of chunks of friction material and the magnets looked like chia pets. The solenoids were probably on their way out too.

My 91 has been doing great though, got it at 207k and it's got over 230k on it now, I've hauled 3/4 ton of junk for thousands of miles. Transmission had such dirty fluid in it when I got it that it was opaque, the previous owner thought it had a motor oil leak when it was spraying tranny fluid from a rusted pinhole in the cooler line up onto the side of the motor. Dumped it out, replaced the lines, put 4 quarts of new fluid in it and been driving it ever since. It's getting a 5 speed as soon as the snowpocalypse is over, but I expect the tranny to come out of the jeep working perfectly. If it wasn't a 2wd unit I'd keep it as a spare for the 96/98 with no worries. I beat the bag off this jeep regularly (been on the rev limiter for multiple minutes at a time to get up snowy hills, it's 2wd and has lousy mismatched tires in the back) and it just keeps on going.

Mine had 117k, the last 7k all hard miles with 38.5s. Broke a T-case output shaft and tom woods driveshaft with no issues from the Tranny.

Another Jeep I had 180k on it, was driven for a couple miles with one of the cooler lines busted. Fixed the line, new fluid and everything was right as rain for another 20k.

All these stories seem to be normal. It seems that the ones that do go out before 200k are the ones that wernt serviced properly. Im trying to figure out all the little weaknesses in this tranny, but I think I figured them all out. Over in steet and performance I did a performance upgrades/reliability thread on the AW4.
In the supra world they have tons of stories of broken second gear sprags when not properly rolling off of a burn out and in hard 1-2 shifts. I dont think the shift points with the jeep tcm are quick enough to worry about broken sprags.

I over heated mine so bad at Rausch that fluid was boiling over the dipstick tube and catching fire on the exhaust! dumped 4 quarts of black fluid for fresh and drove 3 hours home. It then started to stall out in reverse if I was on anything but flat pavement. dumped in a can of seafoam and it fixed everything!

Im now running royal purple ATF and a B&M plate cooler, have not overheated since.

Mine has 350k+ on it, and is just now starting to show signs of wearing out

TRCM said:

Mine has 350k+ on it, and is just now starting to show signs of wearing out

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thats amazing.

The Jeep will go bad well before the tranny. As is true with most any well maintained
flushbox.
Having said that. Sticks rule flushboxs suck. Just my $.02

Mine has 225K and is still going strong. That is even with dealer service records that indicate it was serviced with ATF+3 and +4 throughout its life.

its deffinetly a good tranny. It is very reliable. Like I said, 250k and 270k on my two. then the one sitting in my parts pile has 189k and it was still good.

97 aw4 204,000 converter failed sending metal through transmission.

I had a 2wd AW4 go bad on me. It was 18 days after i purchased my Jeep. I assume it had been majorly abused--the fluid was fresh so no doubt it crapped out on someone and they changed the fluid, got it going, and sold it to me. :/

But...that led to my 4wd conversion, and things have been gravy since then. From what i've read, a good cooler will keep these transmission alive forever.

mine went dead at about 210k while towing a tent trailer from phoenix to moab. it was neglected before i got it

Mine died at $155000. replaced it with a 75k unit.

Mines been doing great, overheated it 3 times so bad the fluid was bubbling out of the dipstick tube onto the exhaust giving a huge smoke show. Ive been running 33s on stock gears for a while now with no trans cooler, just the other week i blew a trans line and ran that sucker dry and its still ticking i only have 120k on it tho. I think its a great trans as long as fluid is changed at least once in a while lol. Id also say that the majority of trans problems is out of adjustment bands or solenoids. Always check the solenoids before junking a trans.

anyone on here have issues with the solenoids?

norcalchris said:

anyone on here have issues with the solenoids?

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yes i have mine went at 190000 miles swapped new ones in on my old xj drove it for another 10000 miles until i junked it due a fire