Today my son was driving my 2001 Durango,4.7,2-wd down the highway at 65 mph. It suddenly downshifted to D-2 and he said the RPM jumped to about 5500 which is part of the down shift. He is a new driver so he doesn't have much knowledge of our wonderful automobiles we treasure so much. I asked him if he might have bumped the shifter but he said no. Let me hear your thoughts because this is very puzzling to me. I have about 160,+++ on the odometer and it runs very well for that many miles.

 

trans solenoid

 

He could of thought he was a bad *** and dropped it into 2nd and stomped on it.....LOL


Is it running fine still?

 

You just answered your own question!

Bob

 

yup the son driving it was probably your issue, he did something without realizing it, i have had my shifter bump into a lower gear without me hitting it to (i hit a bump shortly after departing on a trip, so it wasnt at highway speeds)

if i were you i would go ahead and test drive it under similar conditions and see if you can reproduce the problem

 

Don't mean to sound like a dick, but an inexperienced driver this happened to, especially your son. If it was my dad he would have, and has said, what did you do to it to do that. Try to reproduce it yourself, then you could probably more accurately describe to us what happened. You really don't want to have to do tranny work it can be expensive, unless you are experienced enough to do it yourself.

 

All good answers. I did go out with him and tried to recreate the scenario and I think what might have happened is he had shifter between D and 2 hit a bump which dropped it into 2. When we talked about this possibility he was like welll maybe!! Any way I thought I would have some fun with this and just see what everyone had to say. If it does happen again I will be back on here for sure looking for answers!! Thanks for your replies!!

 

I liked that Bob
As I was going through the process of elimination I asked him how did you get the trans from 2 back into D? And he said he slowed down braked some and moved shifter back into D. Hmmmmmm!

 

I can only hope that I'm that patient when my boys start driving.... of course I would have *NEVER* done something like that when I was 16!!!!!

Bob

 

My first ride was a stickshift, I still shudder when I think how the tires used to howl when I got it wrong on downshifts and went from 4th to 1st instead of 3rd, never bothered me too much at the time, just GGGGGGRIND it in to another gear and onward, oh dear !.