93 Plymouth Grand Voyager – transmission issue

[quote=”ajpd1989″ post=107428]I have a 1993 Plymouth Grand Voyage LE with 3.3L V6 engine and 4-speed automatic transmission.

Just recently it started having an issue with the transmission where if I drive it more than a certain number of miles (about 9), it will spontaneously downshift to first gear and will not upshift at all.
It is rare that I drive that far, as my workplace is only 5.6 miles away, so it doesn’t happen often.

At first, this would resolve if I just stopped and restarted the engine, but now it will only go back to shifting normally after letting the engine cool down for a few hours.

I don’t know much about automobile transmissions, but I think old fluid might be at least part of the issue. As far as I know it hasn’t been changed at all and the vehicle has about 124,000 miles on it. When I checked it last night, the level seemed a bit too high, and the fluid had a slightly dark tint and little particles in it.

Does anyone know what the issue is and how serious of a problem it is?[/quote]

Your transmission is going into “limp” mode. That can be caused by several things but I’m guessing the transmission gears are gone at this point. Take it to a specialist and see what they say.

First thing to do is have the have the trans computer scanned for fault codes. Those transmissions were notorious for certain problems such as bad speed sensors. It might be an easy fix.