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Hello!
I recently got a “cheap” 1995 Chrysler Stratus LX ,with a 2.5 liter V6 engine and a 4.speed automatic transmission,but see here is the problem. The car jumps into limp-home mode some time after starting the engine. Usally when you brake and start off at a red light. When its cold ot rives fine for 5-10 minutes,about the time everything gets up to temperature,then it jitters and jumps into second. BUT! If you park it by the side,re-start the enigine, the problem is fixed temporarly,and then again you can to a stop,then start off it jitters and BOOM,limp-home mod activated!
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I would start with a fluid and filter change. Don’t forget, that transmission takes ATF+4 use of standard Dexron/Mercon will cause you shifting problems.
you can try a fluid change, but it sounds like you have a clearance issue within the transmission. as the fluid heats up, it becomes thinner, and is there is tolerance problems, you will lose pressure. adding a bottle of trans-med may help you for awhile. but drive it for now and see if it occurs on you.
[quote=”shaun” post=75576]you can try a fluid change, but it sounds like you have a clearance issue within the transmission. as the fluid heats up, it becomes thinner, and is there is tolerance problems, you will lose pressure. adding a bottle of trans-med may help you for awhile. but drive it for now and see if it occurs on you.[/quote]
That is the way I lean also, but I have seen old ATF+4 cause weird shifting problems. Or the previous owner might have done a fluid change and used the wrong fluid.
Not when its hot.
Condition – It starts off fine when cold,you drive it and it goes through all the gears smoothly. then when you brake and acceletre(causing to switch gears) it jitters a bit,then slips for a moment and then jumps into limp-home mode 2nd gear.But then! You turn the car off and on,and everything seems to fine again,that is for some time at least. Its weired,sometimes when you brake easy and stop,and then start off again,like at the red light,seems fine. Othertimes,the car freaks out and the above happens.
My guess is the electronics somewhere. Maybe. Cant be the internals,because at first start they show no sign of something bad inside. No crunch,slip,ticks etc. Fluid is Redish,pinkish. I will post some pictures latter.
Can a corroded wire or some other bad electronic component at certain situation cause something like this?
If there are no transmission codes stored then the best course of action is to replace the fluid/filter and recheck for the problem. You might also try an additive like Lucas or something like that. It can’t hurt. Outside of that it’s likely an internal transmission problem that needs to be repaired or you could opt to replace the transmission.
Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.
I did not explain it in the description correctly.
The car does NOT jump out of D,it just slips into limp-home mode(2nd gear). Its the A604 40TE,chrysler transmission. A lot of people get this problem,but THERE IS NO POST OF EVER someone acctualy posting the solution. I know,I checked through out 20 google search pages,with diffrent search criteria. No answer. Some suggest that changing the input/output speed sensors may fix it,but some say it has no effect. Than there is the myth of “chryslers little secret”,where there was some problem with the wiring,something about 3 wires touching and causing faults right from the start of production,and their sullution was,to just duck-tape it and sell it. Well I have not checked this out myself,yet,but will. Then some say to check the ground strap,but NO ONE ever told it where to locate it.I doubt its a internal fault. Why? Becuase there are many,MANY posts on the internet saying they got he transmission rebuild and the problem still showed up after a few days/weeks. SOME people said that the TMC on the 1995 models where the big weak spot and that was causing the problem,it is hard to find good ones because most of them ar bad,and TCM from others years (1996 etc.)are hard to come by and in most cases dont really work well with a diffrent car. Most of people sold the car just becauase of this problem.Are you sure it must be the internals? Many have rebuild the transmission and suffer the same problem again a few days/weeks after the rebuild was done.
How many miles are on this thing?
The TCM puts the transmission in limp-home mode either because there is a gear ratio problem or because it thinks there is a gear ratio problem. The TCM verifies that the correct shift has occurred by comparing the input speed sensor data to the output speed sensor data. There really should be a code or two in the TCM if you’re having this problem– Chrysler usually delivers a P0700 code via OBDII which just means that there are codes stored in the TCM– some scan tools will pull those TCM codes, some won’t.
Chrysler transmissions are very sensitive to fluid type and condition and it is important to know there’s a clean filter on there. They will have problems if someone has tried to use a generic fluid with a can of additive. Making sure you have ATF+4 in there is important. So that’s a good first step, but you really should get as much fluid out as possible. You can do a “home flush” in which you do a pan drop/filter change/refill, followed by running the engine to drain one quart at a time out of the transmission cooler line, followed by adding a quart, or if you let the thing sit for a day or two with the pan off, a lot of fluid from the converter will drip out.
While you’re doing that, you could pull the input and output speed sensors to see if they are fouled with metal “filings”. If so, clean and re-install them.
If that doesn’t work, in order of expense of repair:
1) Check the wire harness for corrosion, physical damage or burn-through. Also check your grounds to the engine/transmission and ground and power to TCM.
2) An input or output sensor could have failed.
3) the solenoid pack could have failed/be clogged up (it has pressure test ports that you can attach a gauge to).
4) the valve body could be clogged up
5) the clutches could be worn out.So that’s pretty much it, and why you probably don’t see a fix mentioned on the Internet– it can be a lot of things.
Oh, one time I had this happen on my Town & Country because the alternator had a bad diode and was feeding “noisy” electricity to the TCM (and everything else). I was led straight to that problem because the gauge cluster was also going nuts while the engine was running.
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