Chrysler Repair: 2002 Concorde transmission, transmission fluid, concorde

Question
2000 Concorde - 42LE tranny. will not engage, if I rev up the engine a little it will kick into gear and go both forward and reverse. I have not checked to see if it will shift into 2nd as I don't want to get stuck with it in the road. No trouble codes, fluid smells a little burnt, could it be as simple as changing the fluid and filter? I just picked up the car yesterday and want to get some advise before I just slap another tranny in it.

Thanks,

John

Answer
Hi John,
I wonder if you might be served by doing a plug-in code readout if so far you only tried the ignition key approach.
If the fluid smells burnt then that would be a reason to change it and the filter. It may be that the transmission fluid pressure is low because of those issues. The fact that raising the idle cause the engagement would suggest that the fluid pressure is too, assuming the idle speed is in the range of 800 rpm. But be sure that you don't have a code which suggests a repair as you would want to do the repair before you change the filter/fluid.
If you do a fluid 'change' consider doing a power flush so that you change all the fluid, not just about 50% which occurs from only a pad drop.
Unless you get a rebuild, just slapping in another used trans may not be wise as it could have a similar or worse problem.
Roland