I just bought a 1998 Neon Competition. (At least, thats what the VIN decoder said it was.) Its not in bad shape considering I only paid $500 for it. It has 127k miles. One thing I noticed is in this cold Wisconsin weather that the transmission will not engage/slips until it gets warm, then it pulls like a mule. I know the transmissions on these are kinda garbage, but the fluid is dark red. Would changing the fluid help, or make it worse? When I did a fluid change on my Intrepid, it made it worse. I'm also planning on adding some Lucas No Slip as well.

 

Dark red fluid in a manual transmission doesn't sound good. Could be that someone used Mopar atf+4 as manual transmission fluid, which it is not. Your neon does have a manual transmission correct?

 

It has the goofy 3 speed automatic.

 

I think the 3speed auto had a better history than the early 4 speeds (Ultradrives) did.

Any automatic needs clean fluid that has the original lubricity characteristics. Being dark red and then works after it warms up (viscosity reduces) suggests both the fluid has degraded and the filter is restricted.

I did a simple pan drop and filter swap on my '05 Caravan with 4 sp auto, then replaced the filter and topped off the tranny just to get a clean filter and some fresh ATF in it. No drivability issues and have over 130K miles and pulled a 12 foot U-haul trailer from MD to NV without a trailer "package" and no issues.

Since it works well warmed up, I'd drop the oil pan on the transmission, put a new fliter in it and replace the fluid amount drained with new fluid. Or take it to a garage and have them do the tranny filter and full flluid change.

Or swap to a 5 speed manual and really have some fun!