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Problems with 2013 Chevrolet Traverse POWER TRAIN

On average, the 2013 Chevrolet Traverse starts to “feel” problems with the POWER TRAIN and its various aspects after 60 453 miles.

Recently reported POWER TRAIN problems on 2013 Chevrolet Traverse

While driving on a busy highway and without warning my 2013 traverse started to loose power. this was very dangerous and quite scary as i almost got rear ended by cars behind me as my vehicle almost slowed down to a complete stop on the highway. the 'traction control is off' llight came on - followed by the 'stabilitrak', 'loss of engine power' and 'service traction control'. i made it to an hwy exit at about 5 mph. thankfully, i was able to find a safe place on the side of the road before my car engine started to shake and then cut off. i had to get a tow to the chevy dealership service. this suvhas had a number of issues from the time i purchased the vehicle. the first issue is loss of power during acceleration, which the dealership has continued to dismiss. i have also had issues with the air bags, transmission, seatbelts and power steering. the power steering and transmission were recently 'repaired' this past year, but i have continued to have issues with both of those systems.

2013 chevy traverse w/ 126k miles: while driving 65mph on the freeway the entire car shut off. everything went black, and i couldn't depress brakes, or turn the steering wheel to move to the shoulder. within 20 sec the car started back up and went into limp mode and i was able to make it to a gas station. check engine light, traction control off, park assist off, engine power reduced and service stabilitrak all came on. when i disconnected the battery, or pulled fuses to reset ecm, the car would start just fine. though it would happen again within another 20 mile or sometimes it would be a day or two, but would replicate the problem. i was told by two chevy dealerships that there was nothing wrong, but apparently ther is something wrong and it needs to be recalled and address before deaths occur because of the issue. there are many posts and forums about this situation from other traverse owners of the same year.

When vehicle is accellerated from a still position, and accelerated to get up to speed, vehicle engine has a constant jerking that vibrates the entire vehicle and once up to road or highway speed, and maintains a constant mph, the shaking stops. when accelerating again,vehicle does the same thing; jerking / shaking until letting off the accelerator and leveling out at a certain mph.. air conditioner is constantly 'going out' during the summer, blowing only hot air, then after vehicle is turned off, and some time goes by, something in the electrical/computer system must reset itself because the a/c will start working fine once vehicle is turned back in.

2013 chevy traverse w/ 120k miles: while driving 75mph on the freeway the entire car shut off. everything went black, and i couldn't depress brakes, or turn the steering wheel to move to the shoulder. i panicked as i was in the middle of the desert with my 5 year old. unacceptable! within minutes the car came back and went into limp mode and i was able to make it to a gas station. check engine light, traction control service, park assist off, and stability control service all came on. pulled codes and they were all transmission control module codes. when i disconnected the battery, the car would start just fine but would replicate the problem if i drive it beyond a mile. was told the tranny needed to be replaced ($3000). i had my uncle, a 25+year experienced mechanic, look at it and said the tranny was fine and believes it is electrical and one of the control modules must not be communicating properly. his exact words were 'this car is possessed, it is doing the weirdest stuff'. it can't be the tranny because if it were it wouldn't just come back to life on its own without repair. there are a plethora of complaints online concerning this exact same issue, yet no recall or investigation whatsoever. we replaced the alternator twice in 4 months as well due to failure. voltage gauge is constantly jumping from 12v to 16v. the rear controls to the a/c dials are extremely hot to the touch as well. it's very strange. every mechanic friend that has worked on it says 'get rid of it because they're the worst cars' and they see nothing but problems. conveniently, it happens just outside of the warranty period. unfortunately we still owe 15k on it. shame on gm for ignoring these major issues for the sake of doing major repairs on so many affected vehicles.

Driving on the highway. the headlight bulb burnt while driving on the highway. this could have been more serious then it was if i would not have been warned by a passing motorist.

I want to report a very dangerous and safety hazard that we recently experienced with our 2013 ltz traverse. on july 23,2017 my wife and i were driving on interstate 80. driving in the middle lane going 70 mph. all of the sudden bells were ringing and dashboard alerts lit up. (traction control off, service stabilitrak and engine power reduced) our speed went from 70 mph to 10 mph in seconds. the traffic behind us were serving all around us to avoid a serious accident. we were lucky no one was killed. we were finally able to get off the road into a truck weigh station. our traverse was towed to the nearest chevy dealer in frankfort, il. low and behold there wasn't anything wrong with the traction control or the stabilitrak. we were told that the codes were for the high pressure fuel pump and sensor. the ecm should not have these three problems routed together. there should be some sort of alert for the high pressure fuel pump before it is a problem and the engine power reduced should never be used. please get this fixed before there are major fatalities!

Car stalls while idling. the rpm's and the battery gauge go up and down while driving on city streets and highway. it has also been warm and cold weather. the car will reduce speed on it's own while this is happening. the vehicle drives rough and the engine sounds harsh. originally engine light codes of p0174 and p0171 came on and dealership cleaned air flow. now no codes and dealer isn't able to always recreate. i have brought to dealer multiple times for same issue. owned vehicle less than 90 days.

It has a 2nd and 3rd shift slip everyone and the but sometimes it does it so bad pulling in to traffic can be dangerous you think its going and getting up to speed but then it try's to shift and nope have to let all the way out of the gas to go in to gear then your good if you dont get hit first.

Wife went to park car in driveway between garage & street and when exiting the car, the car began to roll backwards. she tried to get back into car as 2 grand kids were in the back seat. after several attempts to get in, the car door knocked her down & the car continued to roll into street up on neighbors front lawn across the street. she was knocked unconscious and suffered bruises up & down her right side when i retrieved the car, found it in "park" & engine was turned off. keys were still in ignition but in off position. driveway has a slight downgrade but not what i consider significant. neighbor had outside camera with audio but did not have vehicle in picture. it did have audio of car going click, click, click, click, click, etc. as it rolled backwards till it came to a stop. very fortunate it did not collide with anything behind it or any traffic crossing street as would have been disastrous. wife was taken to hospital and required follow-up visits with specialist & also had a return visit to hospital with complications from her concussion. dealer found intermittent binding in park pawl linkage and adjusted shifter cable first. could not duplicate problem. further discussion with gm were instructed to replace park pawl and comparts including link arm w/spring. did find recall on 2014 chevrolet traverse matching description of my experience with transmission not engaging in "park" & rolling. interesting that the 2013 was the year the traverse was redesigned.

Traveling at roughly 55mph the vehicle started beeping. the car controls began to become hard to steer and without warning the speed in seconds slowed to 15-20 mph. the dash starts reporting the following information:engine power reduces service stabilitrak traction control off i pull over shut off the car and eventually the dealer says it will go away. its a non issue. then it happens again and again over and over again. the code every time is p2138. the service department even thinks an existing tsb is the issue 11273 but since my car isnt listed on it. *tr

While driving this 2013 traverse, it lost all power with the stabilink and traction control warning lights being activated in the message center. then the 2013 traverse lost power with the check engine light illuminating, when this occurred the traverse immediately slowed from 55 mph to 15 mph causing a rear end collision. all my online research in different forums displays numerous others incidents of this same stabilink/traction control issue. it does not appear to be a safe design and a recall should be announced before someone is seriously injured. *js

This has now occurred twice within the past 30 days. while in motion, the vehicle transmissions jerks, and speed is immediately reduced to 5mph. the stability control light comes on as does the check engine light. a remote diagnostics scan from on-star identified 3 error codes: c0561, p0700, p182e. the first time it occurred while exiting a highway off-ramp. this vehicle was taken to the dealership. the dealership informed me that there were no know issues related to this, no recalls, and no service bulletins existed describing this behavior for the 2013 model year. they were unable to recreate the problem and returned the vehicle to me. this happened again yesterday while approaching an intersection and slowing from ~35mph with traffic close behind. this is an extremely dangerous system behavior which could have easily resulted in a severe incident in a dangerous intersection. while the vehicle is in the state where the stability control light is on we observed hard transmission shifting/jerking into and out of park, reverse, neutral, and drive. we turned the vehicle off for 15 minutes. upon restarting, normal operations were restored with the exception of the check engine light. the check engine light turned off after ~25-30 miles of driving. *tr

Tl* the contact owns a 2013 chevrolet traverse. while driving various speeds, the vehicle would suddenly stall while changing gears. the vehicle was taken to grafe chevrolet gmc (407 fairwinds st, hallettsville, tx) to be diagnosed, but the cause of the failure could not be determined. the dealer flushed the transmission and replaced the transmission filter, but the failure continued. the manufacturer was notified of the failure. the failure mileage was 40,000.

Transmission was surging and abruptly shifting from second to third gear and again from fifth to sixth gear. the more it was driven the worse it was getting. brought it to the dealer and the transmission needed to be repaired. wave plate and pistons and seals gears 3, 5 and reverse were all replaced. the transmission tech at the dealership said when he opened it up there was metal parts falling out. after researching this problem i found 5 others that had the same problem. the wave plate is breaking apart inside the transmission. i expect to see a recall on this transmission as more people have this problem. *tr

In snow of almost any depth, the vehicle will shake violently on acceleration from 35 mph up. the transmission will not accelerate and feels like its bogging down. it will stay like this for sometime hours then it will cease. fender wells are clear of debris. the problem is it will do this sometimes at will on the roadway where i have been almost rear ended trying to get up to speed, there are multiple complaints on the chevy traverse forum website. someone is going to get seriously hurt or die. *tr

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