1995 Chrysler LHS in limp mode

It’s little wonder that you are having problems finding someone who will look at the problem. The scene you have described is a technician’s nightmare, an electrical intermittent. With an intermittent, the technician knows only two things: 1. there’s a problem with the TCU (I would check the ECU, as well, just to be sure); 2. the problem is intermittent.

At this point, I will guarantee that anyone but a tech who is an absolute fanatic on finding things will throw up their hands and walk away, muttering to themselves. The fanatic will dive in and try to find the intermittent problem, but the chances are good that eventually even the fanatic will give up and move on.

The short answer is that if there is an intermittent with the TCU, perhaps it is time to think of putting your LHS out to pasture in favor of something a bit newer. If you get get under your LHS safely by sliding and looking around with a flashlight, you will see the enormity of the problem facing you.

See the rather large transaxle between the front wheels and under the engine. Somewhere in the housing a wire — a single wire — is grounding out and causing the problem. The trouble is which one and where. Normal diagnostic troubleshooting has a technician putting a signal (electric voltage) through each wire in a particular system and then taking a volt-ohhmeter and checking the wire from point to point as described by the service schematic.

To find a problem with the TCU signal, believe it or not, you have to go back to the console in the passenger compartment, pull the housing and then finding the pair of wires (you need a signal wire and ground to complete any circuit) that control the TCU. Look at the loom of wires that is underneath the console. Though I haven’t counted the number of wires in a particular transmission control loom, I believe you may have 20 or more wire pairs to run. Each circuit has to be painstakingly checked and when the signal ducks into the bellhousing (the tranny cover), where does it go? You will have to pull apart the entire transmission assembly to find the TCU signal. That is a very expensive and frustrating proposition at the best and absolutely maddening at the worst. It is enough to send veteran technicians running out babbling to themselves.

That’s actually the reason no one wants to take on this task. It is not one that can’t be done, it is just that it is so monumental in scope (passenger console; wire loom: trace out through the firewall; trace from the firewall to transmission; transmission housing) that no one will take it on. There is no percentage and the cost to you will be quite a bit.

Let’s say you do convince someone to take it on. It will likely take at least two full days or more to find each leg of the circuit and trace it. You can add on another two days if you have to strip down the transmission housing and tranny parts to find the intermittent.

You do the math and see if it is affordable. Let’s base it on the maximum number of days to do the work, four. At the moment, the average technician’s hourly is over $150 in many places. Let’s use $150 per hour as the base, though. One day is $1,200 in labor and four days is just under $5,000. I am not kidding about the time it takes; an intermittent, as noted, is a technician’s nightmare.

The question you have to ask right now is this: “Am I willing to pay more than the cost of another rebuilt transmission to find the problem?” I think I know the answer to this but I think you should ask the question and think about the answer you get.

At this point, I think your next move should be to a dealership or Craigslist or another venue to find another vehicle. In the long run, you will honestly save money.