Hi,

First of all, thanks to Hydroshocker for the sticky post. I looked there first.
Still, I'm not sure what's going on with my 4.7L 2000 Durango.

Recently I had to replace the rear speed sensor (one on the differential) and a little over a year ago I had to replace the speed sensor on the tranny itself.

I live in California, and the weather has finally cooled. The first day of this cool-off, was the first day this problem starting occurring. Here's the rundown:

I pack the family in the car for the daily commute.
I start her up, and get going (I've never been a big warm-up the engine type. But as I mentioned on another thread, the D' is pretty stinky nowadays, and I don't like sitting in my exhaust fumes. Still haven't worked out that issue.)
A couple minutes in to the drive, like clock-work, I'll get a really hard down-shift. It doesn't happen on acceleration, but when I'm at a low cruising speed (around 45-50 mph).
The Durango seems to be instantly stuck in a gear (I'm guessing it's 3rd. I can actually move from stop when this happens, but it's real sluggish). There appears to be no downshifting or upshifting after this incident.
The engine light comes on about 30 seconds later.

Here's the weird thing. All I have to do is make sure the car is at a stop. Turn off the ignition, wait maybe 10 seconds, and turn it back on. Instantly it grabs into gear and we're off without any further troubles.
Later in the afternoon, again like clock-work, the engine light turns off.

Out of the last 10 working days, on all but two of them this occurred. It was like Groundhog Day (bill Murray movie, not the holiday). On one of these days, I purposefully drove gingerly to see if it made a difference. It must have. On the other day, I left later in the morning, so I'm wondering if temperature or condensation has something to do with it.

I welcome any sherlockian insights to this oddity. I'm hoping (as probably anyone would) that this is not indicative of a transmission failure waiting to happen.

 

Sounds like a Pressure Governor solenoid to me. It's located inside the transmission.

 

yup sounds like the solenoid is going . . .

 

When a 45RFE or 545RFE goes into limp in, its 3rd gear. Have scanner hooked up the TCM and find out if there is any codes. That transmission has had some problems with actuator plate snapping off screw heads, also the solenoid pack has been a problem too.The reason after you turn the key off and the trans starts shifting is because, you have reset the limp in state.

 

Ok, so we're talking about a transmission rebuild then eh? I wonder why it's only an A.M..

Anyone had experience with a good mechanic at reasonable rate in Southern Cali (OC preferably).

Also, how long do you think I may have before this is not recoverable by stopping and switching on/off the ignition? Months, weeks? I'm considering buying a new car and making the D my 2nd car for those too-often trips to Home Depot. Reason: I'm starting to see even more problems. e.g. my gas guage isn't working right (says it's empty after a fill up, doesn't work again till tank is less-full), also got a check gauges light that seems related to my oil gauge. On a related note the D seems to be burning through oil too, which it never used to do.

 

Try having the truck scan for codes and post first. It may not be an overhaul, but it helps if we knew what the codes are.

 

^ I totally agree with master ^

 

History of the situation:

So I'm new to this forum. Didn't exactly want to start a new post. Heres my situation. I have a 2001 Durango R/T 5.9 AWD/4WD. Since ive had it there has been a constant tranny issue. Heres the history. I bought it about 2 months ago from Carmax. Ive since dropped it back off with them 10-12 times. They keep sending it to a tranny shop and doing random crap.

Originally I noticed when I Wide-open throttle from 0mph it wouldn't up-shift to second and would instead hit the rev limiter until I let off gas. Then Carmax did some work told me it was done. Then i noticed that there was odd shifting under light acceleration from 0-35mph. Basically kept going back and fourth with them fixing this. So eventually they rebuilt the tranny. (Full rebuild is what I was told. Im going to find out tomorrow if they replaced the torque converter tomorrow as sometimes not all tranny shops do that.)

I got it back and it was still doing this as well I noticed that when I accelerated heavy from 65mph the RPMs shot to 3500 dropped to 2800 then the car slowly built speed up. But this would not occur if I was driving over 65 mph.

After all this time of going back, Carmax sent it to the dealer who said to replace the Governor Pressure sensor and a Solenoid valve. So because my warranty wouldn't pay another shop to do the work Jesto did they sent it back to Jesto. They replaced those parts I picked it up today. I accelerated WOT on a country road and it hit the rev limiter again. Now they are trying to tell me its normal and that I cant accelerate hard in the truck thats why they put a Rev Limiter in it. I call BS but wanted some advice.

In summary:

Bought the truck,

Issues:
Tranny shifted odd under light acceleration from 0 to appx 40mph. (Felt like a double shift or double bump.

Truck would hit rev limiter and not shift from 1st-2nd gear under WOT starting at a stand still.

When accelerating heavy from 65 MPH the RPMs shot to 3500 then dropped down to 2800 and slowly built back up***. Not like a downshift for more power just like it lost some of its umpfh.

*** While the truck slowly accelerated up to desired speed. However when wot at 70mph truck had a fire on its *** and gets to 100 quickly.)

Solutions thus far according to Carmax/Jesto Tranny:

Adjusted accelerator cable
Rebuilt Transmission
Several Tranny Flushes
Replaced Governor Pressure Valve and Some Solenoid

Issues remaining:
Under wide-open throttle from 0mph car hits rev limiter instead of up-shifting from 1st to 2nd gear. Now being told this is normal in the trucks.

As a side note there is power steering noise when you first turn on the car or take turns. Not necessarily turning the wheel all the way to one side or the other. Noise occurs even during id say 1/3 steering wheel turns. I assume the power-steering pump or rack/pinion might be getting weak. They did a BG flush and said the noise is normal because of the extra weight from the 4WD on the front end.

Anyway the car is back at the tranny shop I have to speak with them tomorrow and prompt responses would be extremely appreciated!

Thank u all.

 

the extra noise from the ps pump is not normal, check the fluid level, if it is low, add to it, if it is not low your ps is on its way out, make them fix it,

now the tranny, you have hit the normal stuff, and you happen to be correct, when you accelerate at WOT from 0 it should hit the rev limiter, upshift, and keep pulling not hit the rev limiter and sit there bouncing off it. The only problem i see with what you have done is that the tranny was FLUSHED this is a NO-NO especially as the mileage gets up there, it can cause WAY more problems than good, but since it was done, have someone look at the check valve in the trans line going to the cooler, and make sure that the trans cooler is getting fluid flow, and have them adjust the bands in the transmission

 

They flushed the tranny 2x prior to the rebuild. Since then they have rebuilt it. I will insist they fix the PS i spent 3k on a 3year extended warranty. The problem still exists with bouncing off rev limit though. Do u have any TSBs or dodge reports I can jam in their face to accept they aren't fixing the problem and me having to drive 2400k plus miles total to the dealer and back to my home is a pain in the *** so just fix it! =))