I have been running into a problem with my transmission lately. When it is cold or even warm (not hot), the selector lights on the dash will not show R,D,2,1 but will show park and N. If i put it where reverse SHOULD be, it works, and when I put it where Drive should be it at least goes into a gear. When I start to give it gas it is obvious that it is NOT in 1, possibly more like 3rd. Therefor I have to get into a hefty bit more accelerator to get it moving. If I put it in 1 and try to "drive it like a stick" then it seems to work OK. When the trans reaches its peak operating temp (manual says 185 degrees, which is reached after a short drive)then the lights on the dash work fine and and the transmission shifts fine.

Have any of you had this issue before? If so, what may have caused it?

The truck is 2003, 3500 automatic transmission, diesel 5.9

 

The only time i have seen my trans get to 180 is towing 9k in the Sierra mountians. On the norm mine stays around 100 to 120 and it takes a good 20 miles or a lot of stop and go to get there. These trannys just arent built for the truck and everyone should consider or plan on upgrading it if they are buying one. Im just hopng for one more year outta mine but i recently bought a smarty so well see haha.

 

Thats weird about it not lighting up, almost sounds like something in the column. You can adjust the gear selector cable from under the dash if you think the notch and the lights arnt lining up but that shouldnt affect it possibly being in a higher gear at start. When was the last time the trans filter was changed?