Having an issue with the transmission. It has never slipped or shown any wear issues. The other night when pulling from a stop it went fine as usual until it should of been shifting into 2nd gear, drive was dead. Reverse worked fine. Shut the car off then turned on again. It had drive again until it was going to shift into second, was once again acting like it was in neutral for all drive gears except reverse. So turning the ignition off seems to reset the system until you try to get it to shift into second. All I can deduce from this is possible a bad TCM. No engine fault lights, etc. Can the tcm be tested off the vehicle or am I stuck trying to limp this to a dealership? If I just buy a new tcm do I need to do anything special with it or is it just bolt it on plug it in and go?

 

unplug TCM relay or TCM it's self if the car does not go forward, the problem is definitely internally failed transmission part. try that and get back to me.

 

Ok, I just unplugged the TCM unit, vehicle puts all of the transmission gear selection lights on at the same time, will have reverse and no gears going forward. Isn't that to be expected though? Since there is only one reverse gear, there is no need for the solenoids used in drive for switching between the different gears. I guess I am at a loss more now than before for understanding how the system works, if this is a failsafe to kncok all of the drive gears out because the 1-2 solenoid is faulty, or if it a short in the tcm...

If we weren't sitting so bad off financially it wouldn't be an issue to junk the car or bring it in. Between the cost of my worsening diabetes and taking care of 5 people in the house, it isn't possible right now. We had sunk a bunch into alignment and tires on this already, and planned on having to replace the timing chain as I hear it rattle a little unless the engine is under even a little acceleration, but this issue is looking to be a bit more than we can afford if it leads to a rebuild. Any help getting me in the right direction is appreciated.

 

bad news, you have an internal broke part.

see I wanted you to totally disable the electronic control. which makes your transmission only have park, reverse, neutral and 2nd gear. the fact it doesn't move forward is that you have a broken part inside the transmission. there is no magic cure for this, the transmission will need to be removed and rebuilt.

I feel your pain. I to have my share of health issues and lack of any expendable funds. I'm still waiting for my fair share of stimulus money (aka Obahma bucks.)

if you were near me I could get you a new transmission installed for $400 parts and labor.