QuestionMy 91 Lebaron conv. 3.0 litre auto with overdrive. The transmission goes right into reverse, but you have to rev the engine for a minute to get it to go forward. It then jumps into limp mode. If you go about 50, turn the key off and restart when going down the road, it shifts fine until you stop again. It also is idleing kinda strange. Any ideas?
AnswerHi Mark,
According to the shop manual there are many possible reasons for your symptom. On the very worse side is internal damage to a clutch or clutches requiring a rebuild, or it could be a valve body malfunction repairable without removing the transmission, or simply low or aerated fluid. I have answered a similar sort of problem recently as follows:
"There are a number of possibilities, ranging from excessive fluid pressure to some dirt in the valve body (a fairly inexpensive fix) to of course internal mechanical damage (which is expensive because the trans has to be removed and disassembled). Now my thought is to take it to a dealer or a good independent shop that has much experience with the electronic transaxles of chrysler. You could have them drop the pan and change the filter and while they are at it see if there is much "debris" in the pan (indicating some serious mechanical issue). If the pan seemed reasonably clean, then maybe the filter plus a "change" of fluid would do the trick. When you do drain the pan, by the way, you only get out about half of the fluid (the rest is in the torque converter) so a second pan drop may give you a second shot at really getting clean fluid. By the way, I would verify that ATF+3 is correct, because the Chrysler tranny is very termperamental about the fluid it wants.
If that doesn't correct things, then you could ask the dealer or good shop to readout the tranny controller for stored fault codes (or they could do that before dropping the pan, etc.) There should be a fault code stored that explains why you are in limp in mode, and then the possible fixes will be listed (generally not one to one, unfortunately). But you could take this step-by-step to see that you don't do an "overkill" repair that isn't necessary. I am very suspicious about tranny repairs in that I believe too often people are told they need a "rebuild". With the readout, the mechanic should show you a diagnostic table which says what the possible causes for the code are, and what repairs might fix it. Then start with the least invasive (least expensive) and see if that does it."
Roland
