Cold transmission behavior?

Post by **luketrash** » 30 Nov 2006, 07:18

Well, it was finally one of those single digit mornings. It was 9F (-13C) degrees on my way to work according to the temperature gauge in my car (and the sign at the bank said 8.)

As I left my driveway onto the highway I live on, the car would not shift out of first gear. I was only driving about 30mph, realizing this fact, so I turned off onto a side road to investigate. To make the problem go away, I shifted into '3' and it downshifted. Then I put it back into 'D' and it started working properly.

Every automatic I've had will hold gear past normal RPM when it's really cold like this, but this didn't seem normal to me.

Thoughts?

rbrach · Post by **rbrach** » 30 Nov 2006, 11:57

PNP swithch? do have one of those like my 98 does? if so you can try (with the car not running) shifting from park all the way to L up and down about 20 times rapidly, this i have heard can sometimes clean up the copper contacts in the PNP switch, just a thought.

Post by **billofdurham** » 30 Nov 2006, 12:00

Wrong transmission fluid.

Bill.

Post by **luketrash** » 30 Nov 2006, 12:03

It's got the PNP switch which was acting up last week. I did the 'ratchet' cleaning method.

The orange upshift arrow was not flashing today.

I hope I have the right tranny fluid in there

It's just generic stuff, but to spec.