I've had my truck for a little over a month now and don't know if I should take it to the dealer or not.
When shifting from park when I first start it up if it's cold out, there is a short delay before it engages. Doesn't matter if it's into drive or reverse and it doesn't happen all the time (I know it wouldn't happen at the dealer). At least one time, I had to put it back in park ant then to reverse before it would move. Anyone else ever had this problem?

 

I think this is normal if its cold. If you let it warm up just alittle before putting in drive it will be ok.

 

This has been discussed here before. The delay is caused by the design of the automatic tranny. The best thing to do is start it up first, buckle in, set the radio, and whatever else is needed to get ready to go. By then the fluid has refilled the hydraulics of the system and no delay.

Hope this helps

 

i recently noticed this with my dakota; i have the 5 speed auto. could this be for the same reason? it has only happened once or twice, so i haven't really thought much about it yet.

 

I figured it was something like that...I appreciate the feedback.
Although this really ruins my reputation for always running late. Now I have to start out even earlier? How will I ever make that minute up? Maybe I'll have to scrape the windows too now LOL

 

Totally normal... Especially if the engine is working a little harder to warm up... The truck will not shift into gear if the rpm's are too high...

 

Makes perfect sense because it happened to me again tonight. Engine was cold and the RPM's were at about 1k,
belted and adjusted the radio as advised in an earlier post (thanks gone fishin), shifted into reverse and about 5 seconds later the RPM's dropped and it started moving.
Maybe next time I'll have to mix in some mirror adjustment
As long as I know nuthin' is wrong...I just traded in a F@*d truck that had ongoing tranny problems and I was a tad worried LOL

 

Yeah, it's common. Bothered me the first time it did it in my brand spankin' new truck until I realized - "Duh! It's 30 degrees outside and the truck is saying, hold on, I'm cold!" Kind of idiot proofs the mechanics for us jump-in-and-goers. I wish my 05 Jeep would do that. I catch myself not giving it warm up time and it sputters on me for the first 30 seconds or so.