Hey everyone I am at my wits end and I'm hoping someone in here can help solve the mystery as the dealership has been NO help.

Buckle up, it's going to be a long post. Sorry in advance but want to get as many details included to try and get this figured out.

I bought my Equinox brand new in Oct of 2022. It already had to have it's transmission rebuilt because the fluid was full of metal in June of 2023 at less than 14k miles. Just gave out one day with no indication. Nor did anything on my dash light up.

Relevant info: I drive about 35ish miles to and from work. Approx 30 miles freeway and 5 miles city. Around 35min to get to and from.

There is now a new issue(s?) happening. As far as I can remember every once in a while when I would back out of my driveway or pull out of a parking spot, there would be a feeling of a light catch in my gas pedal. It was only right after you started the car. It would be your first turn of that driving session. Never felt anything while diving and mostly when I turned left. No noise was associated with it at first. It also never inhibited my driving in any way. No losing power, struggling turning, nothing. After I had the trans fixed, I really started to notice this catch. It was becoming more frequent. Then one day I was making a left turn at about 135 degree angle at a light and I felt the catch REALLY strong after driving home from work. Still no noise. Kinda freaked me out but it didn't happen after that, just the normal catch feeling until Aug 31st. I was making that same left turn and that really strong catch happened again and it was so bad I felt it through the steering wheel and heard a metal hitting metal noise. Took it to the dealership the next morning. They looked at it and said nothing looked loose or was caught, nothing was pinging for errors, and they couldn't replicate even the regular catch. So they sent me on my way with instructions to document whenever I feel the catch to try and replicate it.

Started documenting. About early October was when everything started to get worse. By then I was feeling the catch every time I drove my car and now after about 30min I would feel it in the gas pedal even if I was going straight on the freeway. Doesn't effect my driving at all. Plus the normal beginning of drive catch would now have an occasional metal noise happen. Took it in on Nov 7th to do the (paid for) 22.5k maintenance, alignment, and to have this issue fixed. Now that it does the catch every time you start driving the car. Gave them all my notes. They called later that day and said it was a rubber mat that I had getting caught. They said they took it out and they didn't feel the catch anymore. I was VERY skeptical as I have already thought of that and took it out myself and nothing had changed. Told them to just keep it out and drive it around more. Said they would the next day. Got an update the next day and was told "yep it totally was this rubber mat" and "I had my senior tech looking at it and he didn't find anything" and they were closing out my case. Okay............ Picked up my car and immediately took the mat out. Drove to work. When pulling out of the parking spot at work, didn't feel the catch. So far so good. Maybe something in the maintenance fixed the issue. Drove home and went to do that 135 degree turn and to the surprise of no one, there was the catch and the metal noise.

So now I'm back to documenting. I still feel the catch at least once a day but it's a little more faint and still feeling the occasional catch while driving after 30min or so. There is way more details in my notes but this post is long enough.

Other things I've noticed- my engine seems to be louder at speeds less than 50mph. It also feels like a struggle to accelerate from a complete stop. Filling up causes an issue. It almost seems like there is an airbubble and I have a difficult time accelerating for the first mile. Today when I was going around 35mph and giving a little bit of gas it almost felt like the acceleration was gently pulsating?

If you made it this far, thank you. I am looking for any ANYTHING on what this may be. I'm so beyond frustrated for being brushed off at the dealership TWICE now (it feels like they are doing that because I'm a woman). I've driven old cars all of my life that I had to be hyper vigilant on any noise and feelings. So to get a brand new car with issues, it makes me want to scream. I'm back to being hyper vigilant on anything this car does and it's giving me so much anxiety to drive now.

Please, can anyone offer any insight??? I am at my wits end. I'm freaked out this all may be connected to my trans and it's going to die again. If you have more questions, please feel free to DM me.

 

The combination of a vague description with no observation and the dealers business model not really set up for in depth diagnostics A visit to a trusted independent shop might be a consideration for you.

 

I don't know what a catch is.
you need to be in the car with the mechanic to demonstrate what has to happen to make it occur and point it out when it does. Try another dealership if the car is still under warranty.