Hi there, I have had a rough time with my 4-speed auto transmission in my recently acquired '02 Neon. Here's what's wrong:

*When put in drive, it doesn't go into gear right away
*Abnormal shifting at highway speeds
*Hard downshift from 2nd to 1st gear
*Leaking fluid (quite a large amount)

I have looked on this forum for a similar problem/solution, but couldn't quite find any. Here's what I have done:

*Replaced trans. pan (with new gasket)
*Replaced trans. filter

My apologies ahead of time for a possible re-post, but any insight at all is greatly appreciated!

 

Your symptoms sound like low fluid level. Have you checked for fault codes? Some atx codes won't come up when you do the key dance thing. You'll need a code scanner for that. I know it's probably a stupid question, but you did use ATF+4 fluid right?

 

I recently checked my fluid levels, and they were actually a tad bit over full. I do use only ATF+4, so I don't think that's a concern. I have also checked for codes, but I don't know if the scanners at Autozone can check for those specific to the transmission.