Aller and reflexive passé composé

Question

My understanding of "être" in passé composé is that it's supposed to be used for reflexive verbs. If this were true, then "je suis allée" would imply, in the present tense "je me vais", which isn't correct. Could someone explain this?

Accepted Answer

Frantz, 
No, ‘ je suis allée (quelque part) ‘ does not imply that the present tense would be ‘ je me vais (quelque part) ‘. The present tense is simply ‘ je vais (quelque part) ‘. Aller is an intransitive verb, and is not pronominal.
Pronominal verbs do take être as their auxiliary, but so do a limited number of other verbs.
The basics are covered in the links below and expanded on in many lessons on this site :
 https://progress.lawlessfrench.com/revision/glossary/verb-conjugation-group/verbs-taking-etre-as-auxiliary
 https://www.lawlessfrench.com/grammar/auxiliary-verbs/
 https://www.wordreference.com/fren/aller

Answer

Just to underline the point Maarten already mentioned:

-- être is used for intransitive verbs (such as aller) to form the passé composé.

-- être is also used with reflexive verbs in the passé composé

These two conditions need not coincide.

There are times when you'd use a transitive verb (that normally would use avoir as auxiliary) in a reflexive manner. In this case you use être:

Ils se sont bien entendus. -- They got along well. (reflexive, so using être)
Ils ont entendu le bruit. -- They heard the noise. (transitive, so using avoir)