I have an '04 crossfire that has auto trans problems and nobody can fix it. I have had the car looked at by the Crysler dealership, MB dealership and a AAMCO shop and nobody has a clue. The car shifts perfectly through the gears when cold but as soon as it hits operating temps it dosen't want to upshift until 4,500 rpms. I can't even manually shift it into the next higher gear once it is warmed up 3-4,4-5. Thre gears lowerer than 3rd shift up but it always needs a manual shift to 4th and 5th when it gets warmed up. I have had the viscosity sensor reset and it has thrown no codes. The trans shop told me it has had higher than normal readings for trans fluid temp twice.....but those coincided with the drive over to the shop. The car has 28,423 miles on it and I am the original owner and it has never been abused. I was thinking about doing a swap for an srt6 engine and transmission but after all the negative feedback about the difficulty from forum members I don't think I will attempt that just now. I asked the shops about a fluid change and all of them told me it wouldn't help.
I did have an independent German repair shop tell me he thought if he replaced the complete intake tb system it would fix the problem. He said it was the Throttle positioning sensor and that he would start there and work his way through parts to fix the problem. Starting price for that was $2,600 and some change. I don't want parts thrown at it. Does any one have any suggestions? The dealerships are totally without a clue. I looked for any similar issues all over this forum and the web and see no posts.

 

I've had a very similar problem. Twice about a week ago one block from home with a cold engine the shift from either 1st to second or second to third was very hard. It was quite a surprise. Then Thursday at lunch with a warm engine taking off from a stop I was at 3,500 rpm before the shift into second at about 5 mph. Friday I had the same high rpm takeoff from a stop happen twice. Drove 200 miles Friday night, 200 miles Saturday night, around town toady and no problems.

 

Are they sure it's not the valve body in the tranny?

Also, what about the electronics ----- what have they checked out? It would be helpful to know what they have checked and eliminated so the members can provide some other potential input.

Best of luck.

 

Did they check the ATF oil level?
Did they check the ATF oil quality?
Did they check the PCM and TCM modul for errors?
Did they check the PCM and TCM modul for corrosion at the plugs?
Did they reset the TCM modul?
Did they check the complete ATF cooling circuit for leakages?
Are there any error messages? (P codes)
Are there other misbehaviors except the manual shifting, like slipping of the torque converter ... ?

 

They checked the following:
fluid level
fluid viscosity
pcm and tcm for any errors
all lines and connections
reset the modules
no p codes to go by for trouble shooting
No other issues but the shifting
As far as I know the corrosion around plugs was not checked.
Is this a common problem with this trans?
The AAMCO supposedly checked the valve body etc......

 

Corossion on the plugs is not very common, but possible.
Depends on the enviroment you're living.
I personally had a probem caused by condensation from the AC that dropped on the TCM.

Did they check then correct temperature of the ATF oil while measuring the level?
This is extremly important.

I don't understand why they didn't get any P codes.
Did they test with a DRBIII tool, or just with a ODBII tool.
You will need a DRBIII tool, to get the codes from the transmission.

It's also possible that the valves do not work correctly.
The first i thing i would do is a complete atf oil change (that means also changing the oil in the lines, atf-cooler...) including flushing the system and change the filter.
Maybe there is some dirt in there which causes a little clogging.

 

The independant shop used the DRBIII tool, to get the codes from the transmission. And the only thing they got was the temp above normal twice and both occurances coincided with my drive to their shop and their test drive of the vehicle for diagnosis. I asked the AAMCO and the dealer if I should have the fluid changed and both told me no so maybe I will do it anyway.

 

If there would be a engraving malfunction, there should be an error message (P code).
And the car should run into a fail-safe programm which does only allow 2 gear and reverse.
But obviously this doesn't happen. So we don't get an error message.

If the transmission get's much too hot there can be 3 problems
- cooling circuit doesn't work correct
- oil filter is plagued
- much too low ATF oil level

Did you do any modifications at your car?
Like sprint booster, modifications at the stereo amp, centre console ... ?

If you let change the ATF oil, make shure that they do a complete spileage. To do that, they will need a vaccum pump and much more than 5 litres (5,28 quarts) of atf oil for a standard atf oil exchange. i think they will need minimum 8 (8,54) to 12 (12,68) litres (quarts). And make shure they'll install a new oil filter and level the atf-oil level exactly. There are diagramms in the Crossfire service manual, that show how high the oil in level in dependance to the oil temperature should be.

Manuals:
https://www.crossfireforum.org/forum...ollection.html

 

Correct no "P" code id seen so it's hard to diagnose.
The over temp issue was caused when the shift didn't happen between the 3rd and 4th then between 4th and 5th gears in normal driving after the trans is at operating temp. Other wise it remains at the correct temp until it stops shifting normally and revs to 4500 before manually forcing it to shift to the next higher gear. It will shift itself back down to 3rd or 4th if the rpm's fall below the 4500. That would cause any transmission to operate in higher than norm temp I believe.

 

BTW thanks for the doc link BigBlock427