staledog

Hi everyone, I've had some good luck getting answers I need here before, so now I have another issue I'm trying to solve.

I have a 2000 Caravan sport with the 3.3, and yesterday I took the kids on a 5 hour road trip to grandma's house. We got within about an hour of the destination and the check engine light came on. Then the tranny started acting funny, it didn't want to shift out of (I think) 2nd gear. Anyway I couldn't do more than 40 miles per hour without turning 4000+ RPM's. Thought to check the tranny fluid, it looked low so I added a quart. That didn't fix it. Turned if off, let it sit for a few minutes, then tried again, it ran fine for a while. Maybe a half hour later it did the same thing. Tried the same trick again, (turned it off for a few minutes), then it seemed fine again but we only had 12 miles to go. The check engine light has still been on the whole time. Scanned it at autozone and they said it was throwing a code for the transmission control unit. They said take it to a tranny shop.

Well I need to make the 5 hour trip back home today, I plan on trying to limp it home and hope it does ok, then take it to a shop tomorrow.

Any opinions? Anyone seen this before? The van is a year 2000 model with 135,000 miles on it. Help if you can!

Thanks in advance
-Cory

staledog

UPDATE:

Well even though I havent had any responses here I thought I'd give the update in case somebody does read this and if they might know something.

We did make it home yesterday, it seems like you can drive it about 20 minutes until it won't want to shift into 3rd or 4th. Then if you turn it off for a minute, and start it again, it's good for another 20 minutes or so. So made it to the interstate yesterday for our 4 hour trip from Chicago home to St. Louis and once I got it on the freeway and kept it at about 70 mph, it was fine for a few hours just cruising in high gear. Got close to home and came into town, it did it's no shift thing once more when I was almost home. The check engine light has still been on the whole time.

My father in law who is a Ford mechanic thinks it may either be the shift solenoid, or he thinks the whole tranny may be going out. I plan to take it to the local Aamco transmission shop today to see what they say.

Any other ideas? Thanks...

mod381

Could be lots of things would need to know what codes are in the tcm to help.

scotts74birds

What you have is probably the 41te transmission. Its a good trans, but there are some issues. First off, it is VERY VERY fluid sensitive to fluid type!!! If it says ATF+3, then use it. If it says ATF+4, then thats all it takes. There are fluids out there that say they are compatible, THEY ARENT! Must say atf +3 or + 4. The old days of Dexron in a pinch are gone! Its too sticky. Also the trans is sensitive to fluid level. What it sounds like is that you experienced "limp-home" mode. When the trans has a "fault" in its operation, it locks itself into second gear to try to prevent further damage. If you put a non-compatible fluid in there, drain and flush it as soon as possible. I cant remember what the "break-year" was for +3 or +4, but it was around 2000. So be SURE what you use. Read your manual. Not many folks have the software to pull the trans codes. Doubt even AAmco does. Most places, other than the dealer will probably only get a generic trans code when they scan it.

staledog

Thanks for the replies everyone. Well just as an update for anyone who may be reading this with a similar problem, here's what happened. I took it to Aamco, and after I told the guy the story he said that even without scanning it, it sounded like a bad shift solenoid, he's seen them go bad a zillion times and it's a common thing. Then they scanned it and said yes that was the issue. So they replaced it and it's been ok as far as I can tell since they replaced it a week ago. The final bill was $340 bucks.

After reading the last post though about how these trannys are real sensitive to the type of fluid, it's making me want to go get a fluid change because I'm not sure what type I put in it when I added a quart last week. I guess I'll put that on my to-do list.

Thanks everyone for all your help.

-Cory