town & country transmissions

I have a 96 town & country minivan w/ 150k mi. Recently while driving I
heard a clunk, my rpm guage shot up to 3500 and my engine shut down. after
a short rest i hobbled home at very low speed. I was told it was the trans.
I took it to a trans. shop and was told it was the planitary gear and was
told it would cost 1000. of which I paid in cash. One week later while
driving at about 35mi.hr. I hit a small bump in the road and the rpm guage
went wild again to 3500 and it certainly souded like the engine was
straining. Back to the shop it went and was told they would take care of
the problem. I picked it up a few days later and was told that they
overhauled it completely and that I wouldnt have the problem again. Here
we are just a few days later same problem. A friend told me it might be
the rpm sensor. This is becoming very frustating and I dont have any more
money to take some place else. I have a receipt stating a 6 mo. warranty.

What could the problem be?

 

Insufficient technician competence.

 

Well that's not terribly helpful.

Firstly, I think you should actually be glad you got 150k from that
transmission. As I understand they aren't much good past 100. Mine is now
junked, but I bought it right after the guy had his replaced at 97k. And,
that one had the optional transmission cooler.

Now, I am not a mechanic, but you should know if it's the RPM gauge or the
transmission that's defective. You can hear the motor revving.

As for the repair shop, your only alternative might be to ask for your money
back if it's not working so you can take it to a different place. That is
not only fair, but likely enforceable in small claims court. If it should
get that far.

But, again, 1000 bucks for the transmission overhaul seems like a *deal*,
compared to the 2-3k that I have heard they go for.

Mr. Curious

 

But this answer is not helpful at all!
If you have the same symptoms after having the tranny, rebuilt, and
overhauled, then obviously that was not the problem to begin with. Mr. Stern
was correct! the person who did this work was a tit-head. Any tranny shop
worth anything would have had the cehicle scanned for codes to see, what the
fault was, if it even was the tranny. Most of the problems of so called
tranny's are the vehicle spped sensors. here's an idea. Actually spend $50-
100 at a Dealer so they can scan the transmission computer, to see were they
ACTUAL problem may be. Then when they pinpoint the problem, get it repaired
were you want and have the Tranny shop re-imburse you for unwarranted repirs
that did not fix the problem.

 

Oh that's brilliant. Have it "repaired" by some moron that couldn't tell you
what's wrong to begin with.

 

Hi Bill,

It really sounds like you got taken badly. I do NOT believe that this
so-called
trans shop changed out the planetary gear. Doing so is a -major- teardown
and
any reputable transmission shop would almost -certainly- have told you to
rebuild
the entire transmission.

Have a look at the following, others on this group have seen this link,
this
shows all that's involved in simply REMOVING the transmission, let alone
tearing it down to replace the planetary gear:

http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com/94tcpics/project.html

I did this R&R job myself and it took me over 36 hours to remove and
replace it. Now granted this was the first one of these that I have done
and
an AWD to boot, plus a lot of time was spent running around, plus this time
includes setup and teardown. I'm sure if I have to do it again it will take
me
half the time. Plus I don't have a lift and used jackstands
and a cherry picker. But I would expect a fully equipped shop, with
air and a lift, which has experience with these, to take at LEAST 4 hours to
pull the
trans out of a FWD van and another 4 hours to put it back in. And to tear
it
down to replace a gear, that would mean the gear had
cracked/stripped/fragmented/
broken which means the entire trans hydraulic system would be contaminated
with
metal particles/flakes, to do it right your talking tear it completely down,
clean
everything, and reassemble with rebuilt torque converter, selonoid body,
and flush the trans cooler as well.

And this isn't even to mention that if the planetary was broken that it is
very likely the vehicle wouldn't have moved AT ALL! With my trans, it DID
break a gear (you can see it in the pics) and it had 1st gear only, no 2nd,
3rd, 4th
and no reverse. And that is just because the gear that broke isn't involved
in 1st
gear, I think the planetary is involved in all gears but I am not going to
look in
my book right now.

This is why these jobs take 2-3 thousand bucks. The place that I took
my trans to get rebuilt charged $1400 for the rebuild alone, that does NOT
include the R&R cost. And it took them a week and a half to get to it
because they had a backlog of transmissions, and I believe
about 4-6 hours to tear it down and build it back up and test it.

And yes you can get remanufactured transes for $700 from some places -
torque
converter not included, shipping not included - and almost certainly rebuilt
with Chinese parts made out of silly putty and JB Weld. God help you if the
core they used had broken gears in it.

My guess is as others have said is you have a problem with the speed
sensor.
Most likely the input speed sensor because this speed sensor is mounted
right
under where the transmission cooler lines go into the trans, and often these
weep a little fluid, the fluid can run down onto the sensor and contaminate
the electrical contacts from the sensor to the wire plug. Oil is an
insulator
and if the springs in the plug that plugs into the sensor are weak, dumping
trans fluid in there isn't going to help anything. Also, this sensor and
the
output speed sensor are well known failure points. Failures of either of
these components will create an error code that a scan tool can retrieve,
either a scantool such as the Chrysler DRB which dealerships have, or
the OTC Genisys which many independent garages have.

My suggestion is this - go to an electronic store and buy a can of contact
cleaner. Find the input speed sensor it's right under the 2 trans cooler
lines,
and above the selonoid body (the metal box in this picture):

http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com/94tcpics/fig49.jpg

Unplug the plug going to it, be careful to not break the plastic keeper on
the plug, just bend it away from the socket body just a hair when pulling
out the plug. Spray contact cleaner in the socket and into the plug
contacts,
let it dry or spray canned air into it to dry it out. Reassemble. You can
also do this to the output speed sensor it is to the right of the input
speed
sensor, it's a bit harder to reach from the top but you can get it.

There is a chance doing this will fix the problem. But to be sure it's the
speed sensors, get the transmission scanned.

Ted

 

No, it doesen't. If they really could do that they would be rushing the job
so damn fast that they would almost certainly be making mistakes right and
left.

The cheapest remanufacturer/rebuilder in the country that rebuilds these
and ships them out all over the country that I've seen advertised is
Phoenix Hard Parts in Phoenix AZ, they sell them for $625. But, this is
without converter, and shipping is an additional $260, plus you have to
pay to ship your core to them which is at least another $200 or so in
shipping costs, plus if your core has anything seriously wrong with it -
like a broken gear in it - they don't accept the core and you get no core
refund.

And while they advertise American-made parts, they don't advertise
American-made 'hard parts' (ie: gears) which is what really matters since
the gears are what take the power and cheap gears will fall apart under
load.

And these guys do them on an assembly line, the idea that some corner
transmission shop could do the same job for the same price or cheaper is
preposterous. A corner shop could perhaps do a lot -better- job, but
not cheaper.

Ted

 

What are you talking about. If you copied the thread properly, it was for
the OP to get the vehicle scanned properly ie: read for transmission trouble
codes, and repaired properly ie from a more reputable shop then he was at,
and get the tranny shop that already bilked him twice to re-imburse for
fraudulent repairs.

 

I guess it all depends on your idea of what "reputable" means. You suggested
having the dealer diagnose it then have it "repaired" where he wants. Why would
you have somebody work on your vehicle that you don't trust to properly diagnose
it?

 

Because the dealer is the only one that can read trouble codes from the
transmission! Duh!

Why would

Obviously doing it without actually having the transmission scanned hasn't
helped, It has only drained him of over $1000.

Seems obvious to me why he should actually get a dealer to scan the
transmission controller doesn't it!

But obviously you sound like you might be the tranny should that rebuilt his
tranny twice, and it still has the same problem.

 

Hogwash.

 

David wrote:

Since when is the dealer the only one that can read trouble codes?
That's patently false. Any competent repair shop will have a scanner
that can correctly pull the codes. The key is COMPETENT shop.

 

How did you come to that conclusion, Einstein?

It's people like him (and you) that keep those places in business. He got what
he was willing to pay for, most likely. As long as folks shop for a repair
facility using price as the only criteria, those people will be getting hosed
and those places will be around.

What's obvious to me is that you don't have a clue.

Nope! I'm the guy that just told you you're full of shit. And you proved me
right!

 

UMM, by what, wanting him to keep going to the same place to have it
repaired, and repaired, and repaired. But you are so smart you haven't told
us what is wrong with his tranny, that it keeps going into limp mode. So,
Einstein, tell us!
Hello, we're waiting for the brilliance of your so helpful answer.