Last night on my way home in extremely cold weather, the automatic 4 speed in my 01 Ram was refusing to shift to second, the revs were flying up to 3000 rpm and it took a long time to finally shift.
I've had imtermittent problems in the past with erratic shifting but it goes away and works fine for a while.

My truck has 54,000 miles on it now, might a fluid and filter change help, or am I losing the clutch pack seals?[:@]

 

I got a 96' indy and i get a similar problem. Before it sifts 1-2 or 2-3 it will normaly got 400 -500 rpm higher than in warm weather. Let the truck run fro about 5 min and it should warm up enough to make any hesitation negligable. At least it seems to work for me.

[IMG]local://upfiles/28155/18C97BA52723426386A6B826EE8EDF62.jpg[/IMG]

 

A fluid and filter change /band adjustment might help. Make sure you use the right fluid. 2001 should have atf+4. I agree with Indy about the warm up but remember that the Dodge trans won't circulate fluid through the converter cooler circut in park. I warm mine in nuetral. It gets down to -30 pretty regularly up here and a little time in nuetral seems to loosen everything up. Also try switching to full syn. gear lube in the diffs. Sounds strange but less load on the drive line won't make the trans work as hard.

 

Mine does it too when its like below 0, or even -5. Try to let the it warm up a bit when its that cold out, put your parking brake on and put it in nutrul so the trans fluid will circulate. Also these trans do not shift into OD untill it reaches a certian temp. Theres a TSB about it, and its to stop the trans from hurting itself when its the freakin cold out. Once she warms up though (trans that is) it should be shifting fine.

 

Thanks guys, but it turned out to be more than cold fluid.
When my trans kept acting up in warmer weather I took it back to Colonial Dodge, they rebuilt it for $1715.
Now it works great.
See the other tranny problem post in the Ram forum.