GM has won an appeal decertifying an 8-speed transmission class-action lawsuit case meaning individuals will now have to sue on their own instead of a group.
GM wins appeal on 8-speed transmission class-action lawsuit
The 9-7 vote decision from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati on Friday, June 27, 2025 found too many differences between vehicle owners to justify having one judge oversee the litigation according to a Reuters.com story.
This ligitation included 26 statewide subclasses and 59 state law claims.
This case involved 800,000 Chevrolet or GMC trucks and SUVs built from 2015-2019 equipped with the 8L45 or 8L90 eight-speed automatic transmissions.
The GM victory means owners of these vehicles will now have to sue individually.
Owners claim these transmissions are faulty and GM knew about before selling them vehicles. They claim the transmissions shudder and shake in high gears, hesitate and lurch in lower gears, even after attempted repairs.
The decision reversed a lower court ruling by a three-judge hearing the class-action lawsuit could move forward.
Owners could still seek certification in smaller batches with the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sending the litigation back to U.S. District Judge David Lawson in Detroit for further review. This could lead to certification of smaller subclasses.
The case is Speerly et al v. General Motors LLC, 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 23-1940.
What GM vehicles are affected?
The 8-speed transmission was used in a variety of vehicles from 2015 to March 1, 2019:
- 2015-2019Â Chevrolet Silverado
- 2017-2019 Chevrolet Colorado
- 2015-2019 Chevrolet Corvette
- 2016-2019 Chevrolet Camaro
- 2015-2019 Cadillac Escalade and Escalade ESV
- 2016-2019 Cadillac ATS, ATS-V, CTS, CT6, and CTS-V
- 2015-2019 GMC Sierra, Yukon, Yukon XL, and Yukon Denali XL
- 2017-2019 GMC Canyon
The lawsuit claims there have been 13 technical service bulletins, TSBs, to fix this issue with no resolution.
Our take
The GM 8-speed automatic transmission from those models years has been a black-eye for the company with numerous complaints, recalls and TSBs to try to fix the numerous issues. GM has since redone the transmission completely and even moved forward with a new 10-speed transmission to leave that issue behind them.
