I'm wondering if my torque converter is no-good...it seems when I come to quick stop, periodically, the car will stall. I noticed that the tach. just plummets as the car comes to a stop; also, I noticed that the car is not "down shifting" into 3rd or even 2nd (once the speed is below 20mph) gear while this is happening. Once the RPM gets to below 500, even 200, the "check-engine" light and dash lights come on--sometimes if I give it gas and drop it into 2nd, she stay alive; otherwise she stalls out. Without fail, it starts right up. This is always and ONLY associated with coming to stop, most often a rapid stop.

Any ideas???

That sounds like a sticking converter or the converter apply valve.

There is a machine that is becoming used at many shops that is a trans flushing device. I think they run a cleaner in and then flush it with fresh fluid. It takes 3-4 gallons of fluid.

I have a friend that has a shop that got one on trial and tried it in all of his and his families' cars and he said it was impressive how much it improved performance of many of the transmissions even on the cars he had since almost new with known regular fluid changes. He bought the machine and said it has rememdied some transes that he thought would need to be overhauled. I don't know what the charge would be for this service. Apparently it was developed for the domestic models with locking TCs that are having a common problem with shuddering TC shifting. It has been used to fix that with great success.