I have a '97 Saturn SL2 and just had the tranny rebuilt, but it still has the typical slam into reverse. It also has a tendency to downshift into 1st or 2nd and stay there revving the engine up to high rpm's... Is my issue a valve body one or did I get ripped off with the rebuilt tranny?

It's an automatic, it is supposed to upshift and downshift by itself. That why you paid extra for it, so you didn't have to do all that extra thinking and work of moving the shifter.

possible that the shifting lever to the trans needs adjustment. could be putting car in reverse and not park. try in nutrel to start. i spelled that wrong time to sleep lol.

Your valve body and possibly input shaft nut need to be replaced. The valve body's booster valve is worn down and won't create pressure. Before it went completely out it slammed on the input shaft nut and loosened it.

You need to replace the valve body and retorque the input shaft nut. The transmission is not junk. The above needs to be replaced and change the filter and fluid and do it every 20K miles.

I have a 97 SL2 and it has the typical slam into reverse, but also after a couple minutes of driving it downshifts... It stays there for like 3-5 minutes then runs fine afterwards... What is the problem?

Transmission is not junk. You need to replace the valve body with a rebuilt one. The cause of reverse not working is because the booster valve cannot create sufficient pressure to get into reverse (reverse requires the most pressure). The booster valve is worn down and the valve body needs to be replaced, rebuilt is the way to go. This is from not changing the fluid and filter every 20,000 -- 30,000 miles to keep gunk from building up and wearing down the valve.

The transmission is fine, don't let anyone talk you into putting another one in, especially for thousands of dollars, NOT THE PROBLEM.

replace tranny filter and fluid, do not do tranny flush, could cause more problem. just filter and fluid change

yes take it back if you are still under warranty.

more than likely you will need a valve body rebuild. you are probably looking around $500+. don't let them try to sell you a transmission. you could search ebay and see if you can find a "rebuilt valve body" but make sure it is for a '00 to '02 SL2

my sc1 97 saturn dont work on reverse when is hot

You can try to do the reverse slam fix, which is easy to do:
Reverse slam fix

If it doesn't work, your valve body is probably bad, here is how to swap it, in case you are up for the challenge:
Swapping a valve body on a saturn TAAT trans.

An other possibility is your mainshaft nut could be loose, I don't have an article up for it yet, but it's comming.
An other possibility is that you have a bad VSS (or Vehicle Speed Sensor).
In any case, your transmission is probably OK, the valve body is accessible from the top of your transmission, right under the battery tray.

Alex