Auto Geabox - Stuck !

[IceBoy]

This morning for the first time....the autobox would not shift from 2nd. It stayed like this for about 5 mins......I continued driving very slowl around my estate this morning and then all of a studden back to normal again.

 

What causes this?

 

Is it the begining of something worse to come?

 

Is it going to be expensive ?

 

Car has done 79k...

 

Help

 

IceBoy

[mumof4]

is it still under warrenty..notice its a 54 plate

[chromedome]

Possibly low auto transmission fluid level. When fluid is cold it's level will be low until it warms and expands thus making things work again.

 

Check for leaks and refill/replace it. Personally I would get the gearbox drained and refilled with fresh as the fluid does get "tired" with age/use.

[Saif Rehman]

is it still under warrenty..notice its a 54 plate

 

Depends when it was first registered i.e after 1st September 2004 (3 yrs) and plus the mileage is too high still to be covered.

 

 

Personally I would get the gearbox drained and refilled with fresh as the fluid does get "tired" with age/use.

 

Surely not for a car of this age and relatively low mileage.

[popeye2755]

Is there still a mileage limit on the warranty? My last Alhambra (04 plate) was still having warranty work done on it at 105,000 miles, apparently due to the fact it was still under 3 years old?

[chromedome]

I'm not too sure but I think Ford is 3 years or 60k.

 

As I said about changing the fluid, I "personally" would change it. The wife has an auto Focus (50k) and occassionally we got slow pick up in drive. My local garage drained the gearbox, refilled with fresh fluid and now the gearbox is running really well. I think it all depends on type of useage, lots of local journeys = lots of gear changes.

[MrT]

Have you any engine management light warnings? When my Galaxy MAF had a dodgy replacement which gave impossible readings the engine management light came on, the gearbox dropped a gear or two and then stuck in that gear until the MAF error and also a gearbox "torque out of range" error (no logical idea why the MAF made this appear but it was repeatable) was cleared from the ECU.

 

Alternatively on our Focus auto, if we red-line it away from a junction in first gear, it decides a low gear is required and it can take some time before it will change up to the higher gears in urban traffic, meaning you are driving around at 4000rpm in second gear for about a minute until it realises you are not going to be driving in that style or until you manually overide it.

[caiss4]

Sounds similar to a problem I had a few months ago. The box would default to safe mode for no apparent reason. The temporary cure was to stop, turn off the engine and restart. This would reset the auto management unit and worked almost every time.

 

Eventually I took it to an auto specialist who plugged in the diagnostic unit and found that there were 8 error codes most relating to one of the hydraulic sensors. As these codes were not time and date stamped he had no idea which one had occurred when so they were cleared. He also reckioned the most likely cause was corrosion of the electrical connections or a break in the wiring loom. The connections were all cleaned and checked and I was told to come back if it happened again and then they'd be able to see the unique error code. Good news is it never happened again and after 3-4000 miles all is well.

[artsie]

Possibly low auto transmission fluid level. When fluid is cold it's level will be low until it warms and expands thus making things work again.

 

Check for leaks and refill/replace it. Personally I would get the gearbox drained and refilled with fresh as the fluid does get "tired" with age/use.

 

Sounds like something I could need.

How much does a refill cost?

[chromedome]

I think the wife's Focus was about

[IceBoy]

I got someone to read the codes. It says:

 

Speed sensor

 

Is this something that can be in-expensive changed ?

 

IceBoy

 

PS. Car sat on driveway for weeks now?