I know it’s Christmas next week, but I am afraid I have to play Grinch here. It’s a lot more than just a wire that may be binding and keeping the shifter from engaging.
At 145,000 miles, your 13-year-old Diamante’s mileage isn’t any more than average. The fact of it is that it puts you almost right on the 15,000-mile-a-year curve that the industry uses to describe an “average” driving year. Somewhere in that 145,000 miles you should have had your transmission fluid checked and swapped out, at least once, preferably twice.
If you leave transmission fluid in as long as yours may have been in the transmission case, you are potentially setting your car up for problems. You mentioned you smelled some burning and it is possible that your long-lived transmission fluid has burned on you or, worse, has formed tarry or waxy buildup. Now, while it usually doesn’t form the same types of laqs or waxes and other buildups that form in your oiling system, transmission fluid can form its own set of nasty bits that build up on things like the impeller blades, gear faces, clutch faces, check valves and more. As the buildup continues the amount of fluid getting through the transmission is further and further squeezed so the flow is cut off.
If the flow of transmission fluid is cut off, then, your transmission will act exactly as you describe it. Suddenly, you go to shift and while the engine works nicely, the transmission sits there almost taunting you because it may even sound as if various parts are trying to click in and go. Rest assured, though, it’s not going to happen and your car will remain where it is, unless you have it towed to your service area.
If you authorize having it opened up, you will likely find there are buildups along many of the transmission galleries and that the impeller has buildups on the blades so that its efficiency is really cut down. You’ll also likely find that one or more of the check valves and gallery runs in the valve body are either gummed up or have their flow restricted to the point where it all shuts down.
Of course, this is a pretty global look at your transmission, but I think if you have your technician look at it, this is the situation that will be there. It’s also very likely, by the way, that the transmission filter is almost or is all plugged up so there is either very little fluid running through it or it is stopped up and fluid isn’t flowing. (In a funny aside, you have to be amazed at the number of things that can look like one thing in a transmission but which may actually be something else. Here, for instance, at least five different possible problems that all have a similar outcome. If you look at them closely, too, they are all, at the bottom, related to the same issue.)
With all of this said, your only choice here is swapping in a rebuilt transmission. I don’t think it’s a good idea to try and fix it part by part because all you are doing is building up your bill and you will likely not receive much benefit from this manner of doing things. If you swap out your transmission and replace it with a rebuilt device, I think you will find you have fixed the problem. With a problem such as you described, there’s no half-way. It is either fixed or not and the only way to handle this is a rebuilt device.
It will cost you about $3,200 with labor, possibly possibly a little more or less, depending on your location.
Should you have the job done or should you take the $3,200 and invest it in a new vehicle? I know this is always in the back of everyone’s mind and here’s my take: you own the car, like as not, lock, stock, barrel and valve stems and the only investment you have to make is your registration every couple of years, and maintenance, as well as other car-related fees such as insurance. Now, the $3,200 investment in your transmission is still a lot less to spend than the amount you will spend over six or seven years in a new-car loan or three to five years on a lease. So, if the body is in good shape and the engine is running well, there’s nothing stopping you from making the fix or fixes recommended. Indeed, the economics say, go ahead and invest in the rebuilt tranny. It actually saves in the long run. Merry Christmas.
