I've had a problem just develop with 98 Dodge Stratus 2.5 (automatic transmission with autostick).
When I decelerate the transmission instead of downshifting towards first gear disengages and instead goes to neutral. Attempting to shift from D to N or D to P and back to D did not remedy the situation and required me restarting the car to get the transmission to engage. I noticed someone else on carcomplaints.com registered a similar problem so if this is something with a TSB I'd love to know as well.

Any ideas what this is and more importantly how much $ to fix? Thank you so much in advance.

 

Follow up: Someone suggested it may be a faulty shift solenoid. Would that sound reasonable?