New torque converter installed at the Chrysler dealer last Friday. Took care of the Rumble Strip Noise, according to the service Advisor.

Haven't seen my car yet, though.

Now, it shifts so hard, the dealer's tranny tech won't give it back. He's been on the phone with Chrylser engineers all day yesterday and today and they came back today and suggested he install a new torque converter. . .

He told them that he just did, so now they are stumped.

TCM, valve body, valve body plate, blah-blah-blah. The rental car company called and wanted to know if we were interested in just keeping it as we've just about paid for it wholesale or if we were car jacked. I said we were carjacked at the dealer.

Anyone have problems with hard shifting and discovered a fix? I'm actually worried these guys are stumped.

Thanks-

 

Ddi they mess with the solenoids at all? I'm a three-pedal guy, but I recall seeing that the automatics responded differently based on the types of solenoids installed. Sounds like, if nothing else, the line pressure might be artificially high.

 

They've been testing it for two days and I don't know what all they've checked. If it's the Trans Control Module, it has to come from Germany, according to Chrysler, which I find just really hard to believe.

Thanks-I'm going to mention anything and everything I read here until they get it fixed.

 

That is correct, you can change from the brown top solenoids to the blue top solenoids and it will firm up the shifting....but I don't think it firms it up to the point where a tech wouldn't give it back.

 

My 300 had hard shifting and then it went into limp mode, a warranty repair but the work order said 'valve body recondition'.
I guess if I was paying, it would have said 'new valve body'.

If your torque converter was shredding itself to pieces then there must be metal fragments all through the transmission channels and valves etc. I'd want a new one. Filters only keep out the large pieces.

 

Yup, roger that, but the dealer service guys were pretty thorough about that. I asked yesterday if a shredded TC would clog the valve body (like they hadn't thought of it ) and they are confident that the filter did it's job and caught anything that found it's way into the main tranny. I don't think the actual plumbing allows for co-mingling of TC and Tranny fluids. They drained them separately and checked the fluid. Then, the warrranty company sent some dude over to take fluid samples and he tested them for suspended particles. That's why the warranty company allowed the repacement of the TC and not the whole tranny.

I'll post the results when they figure it out, but thanks to you guys for the solenoid reference.

 

billie, I brought my car to the dealer for a new top. I asked while it's there could they fix the seat heater, mirror switch and the top switch, and I had the transmission leak from the plug thing. I had noticed the car was shifting slow from 1st to second but I don't drive it everyday so didn't think much of it.

Just got call from dealer. She says there is another plug inside the transmission that is / was leaking. She didn't get into specifics but that the tech said I shouldn't drive it and that someone from the warranty company was coming out to approve the repair cause it's over $1,000. Also said I won't get the car back for at least a week and I have rental coverage with my warranty. It almost sounds like the car needs a new tranny. At 25,000 miles? Looking forward to seeing how this turns out for you. Good luck. I will get more specific with the service adviser when she calls back to tell me if the warranty company is going to pay.

 

Oh, man! That's too close to home!

Dealer called last night and said they were confident that it's the TCM because in all testing after the torque converter install for this new, hard-shifting problem, they realized the TCM was "not learning" and "not adapting" and that told them it was junk. No codes were thrown. Just an illiterate TCM!

The warranty company ok'd the $750 TCM, but in order to get it here from Chrysler in less than 7-10 days, I had to fork over another $50 to get it here tomorrow, when no one is working . Seems Chrylser only uses UPS and won't ship Fed Ex Overnight.

My rental car was good for 5 days at $30 max a day. That gives you a skateboard with a winshield and we used that up a week ago. Called the warranty compnay and they said 5 days is teh max coverage. So, Enterprise could see we were getting the short end of the hot dog and put us on teh weekly rental plan and that helped a bunch.

My wife's all perplexed over a major repair and the cash out of pocket and I keep telling her that for excess rental car and trans. filter and fluid and faster shipping on the TCM that's not covered, we're still doing well to r & r a TC and TCM in a Mercedes tranny for less than $800 out of pocket.

 

I can live without the car for a while. Me and the wife only work about 300 yards apart. I am really wondering what the tech found. I did not have time to ask alot of questions when the service lady called. Just hoping the warranty co covers everything. I will post more info when I get it.

 

Update, The problem is that there is something in the valve body of the transmission called an adapter plate, I think thats what she said. She said that was spinning freely and causing the tranny to leak and also why it shouldnt be driven. I don't know much about transmissions. I wonder what this is and what caused it. Did it do any damage to the transmission? The good news is the warranty is paying for the fix....pheww! The bad is it looks like at least another week with out the car.

 

That was one of the possible causes of my problems before they narrowed it to the torque converter. Valve body, valve body plate or Tran Contr Mod. They went with the TCM. I'll find out how that worked out in a couple of hours.

Here's the really irritating thing about my AUL warranty on this. It's pay for the part, but it will only pay for 7-10 delivery on shipping. If you want it faster (who wouldn't?) it starts getting spendy.

So, the warranty covers 5 days of rental car at $30 a day max. Dealer already had the car 9 days when they called and said they thought it was now the TCM causing the hard shifting post-TC replacement.

Then things got weird: I said okay, is it covered? Oh, yeah, it's covered. Ok, then when will you do the repair? As soon as the part gets here. Ok, when's the part here? Well, you can let it come free of charge in 7-10 days (I am not kidding. He wasn't even laughing when he said this) or you can pay to upgrade the freight (to sometime in this century!) So, I'm paying $30/day for a rental car out of pocket now and the guy wants to know if I'd like to "rush" 2-day UPS for another $50?

"You guys have loaners when something goes like this? I'm getting dragged behind a horse here ion car rental."

"No, we don't have loaners, sorry."

 

Good Luck, hope it's fixed this time. I found a thread about my issue and I understand it a little better. It is irritating that I will not have the car until next week. I'm not real optimistic about that being I was told the part should be there by Friday!

 

Update and this is fair warning to early-years auto trans Crossfire owners: When a dealer orders in a new TCM, it comes from an intermediary transition parts organization known as Star Parts. They shuttle parts back and forth between Daimler-Benz and Chrylser for warranty work.

They will ship the TCM completely blank, like a new DVD out of the package. Normally, you would copy over the old TCM to the new TCM through the scanner.

So, what about a bad TCM, like mine? You cannot use it to copy-over your old data. When the Chrysler dealer calls Star and asks,"Now what?" they don't have an answer. There isn't even a base-line level of software installed or formatted, just blank. And no software disk or web site to go to download or anything.

The service manager was really nice this morning, but they are still stumped. Shop foreman is on my car now. Hope they can figure it out today!