Also known as: a246e, a245e, a247e, toyota small 4-speed transverse
Toyota's small transverse four-speed — in the Corolla E120 and the Pontiac Vibe built alongside it.
The Vibe is a Corolla, so a Pontiac owner researching a gearbox fault is researching a Toyota transmission and Pontiac's own literature barely exists.
It is among the more trouble-free automatics on this site, which changes what a symptom means: a harsh or delayed change is far more often the fluid or a speed sensor than a clutch pack.
Fluid is Type IV, not the later WS, and filling one with the wrong specification produces exactly the harsh cold engagement above in a transmission that was otherwise healthy. This trap runs in both directions across Toyota's range and only the model year decides it.
A shudder at a steady speed is the torque converter's lock-up clutch, not slipping — the same distinction, and the same first remedy, as everywhere else here.
Cars fitted with this gearbox
2 generations. Only where a source names the model and the generation together — a gearbox is documented as a product far more often than as a fitment, so this list is deliberately shorter than the truth.
Pontiac
Toyota
Information, not instruction
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Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
Community experience
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What makes one worth reading:
- The car — make, model, year and engine. The same fault behaves differently on each.
- What you measured, not only what you replaced.
- What actually fixed it — or that nothing did, which is worth knowing too.
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