I had to tow my stratus the other night. Wife called and said it just stopped working and would not shift. I was able to drive it up on the tow dolley but there was a whine coming from tranny area. Now sometimes it will drive fine and sometimes the engine will free spin while in gear, but if I turn the car off for a minute it will shift again. I am stumped as to whether its electrical or if its the torque converter. No symptoms leading up to this at all, just out of the blue the whine started and the tranny started acting up. Probably gonna drop the tranny and replace the torque converter. I am going to to raise it up tonight and drain the fluid and drop the pan and see if there is any metal shavings on the filter. Any sugestions would be greatly appreciated..

 

might be low on fluid or, might just need a new filter, but be warned.

if you change out the ATF, you might start to have tranny probs. heres the deal. all oil, eng or tanny, have a detergent (soap) package added. this keeps the eng/tranny from gumming up or having sludge building up in the nooks and crannies. after a bit the package wears out. when you put new fluid in, the fresh package breaks down the sludge. this sludge gets into all the small holes inside the valves that make the tranny shift up/down. then you need a total rebuild or a new tranny.

auto trannys also have bands that can be ajusted (on some models), yours may need to be tightened. good luck.

 

mine did the exact same thing and i had to get mine rebuilt for about 1400.00 . i had a frow of metal shavings on my magnet

 

Well spent the day pulling the tranny. I still dont have it out. Just a couple of problem bolts to get at and also the bolts holding the torque converter. I decided to go ahead and pull it and get it rebuild and put a new torque conveter on it since it has 195.5k on it. I also learned to front and rear motor mounts are worn out so I will replace them. I will also replace the oil pan its pretty beat up.