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1995, Non Turbo 940 Wagon. The automatic transmission shifts OK from first to second, but then it seems to get stuck in second and I have to get up to 35 or 40 before it will shift.
A little background might be significant:
I noticed last summer that the coolant in the reservoir was a gelatinous texture. I continued to drive it, however, as the condition did not seem to effect performance. I did not connect the delayed shifting to a coolant issue.
About 6 months later I remarked to me mechanic, who immediately said the problem was a fault in the radiator, whereby coolant was leaking into the transmission fluid, which ran through the radiator in a separate pipe, but must have perforated, allowing the separate cooling fluid and the transmission fluid to mix.
This made sense.
I also read on Brick Board, something that confirmed this diagnosis, which contained other recommendations, such as flushing the transmission, which the mechanic did, along with replacement of the radiator. Cost: Way up there, as usual, but that was before I started doing my own work with the wonderful help of this group!)
After this radiator and flushing work, the Transmission seemed improved. It was not at the functional level of my other two 940's, which gave me a reference as to how the automatic transmission should operate, but it was decidedly better.
Now the slow shifting has returned. My daughter drives this car, so I won't be able to check the coolant reservoir until tomorrow. However, I have a recollection of mentioning to the mechanic a month ago that the coolant once again looked cloudy. But it certainly was not gelatinous, as it had been.
One of the main questions I have, is could the mechanic have been wrong to begin with. I ask this because now that I've begun doing my own work, I'm beginning to find so many areas of incompetent or sloppy previous work. Just one small example: I changed a brake caliper lats week. One of the metal sliders was missing. This is the shiny pair that allows the pad to move smoothly. It just hadn't been installed to begin with. And its position is captive, so that it cannot fall out, or rust out or just disappear. This is also the same mechanic who I have told time and time again not to over tighten my wheel nuts. After he replaced the steering rack (never again) he replaced the wheels. I forgot to insist they be torqued correctly to 63 ft lbs. When I went to do my brakes last week, I could not budge the nuts. I had a friend come over whose very capable and after incrementally checking with his torque wrench came to the conclusion that it would be risky to go further, but that the nuts were at least more than 180 ft. lbs. I was in a rage and brought the car back to the mechanic just to have the nuts "cracked". The scene was worthy of a Seinfeld episode, but I won't bore you further. As one of his mechanics was finally torquing the nuts, the mechanic said: "You need brakes".
An advertisement on TV earlier today previewed an expose of people going into service stations for inspection stickers and being told they needed brakes, when there was no need. The torquer could not have told I needed brakes from looking through my alloy rims. And, in fact when I pulled that wheel later and removed the caliper because I had planned a routine check, I just put the caliper back on and closed up the wheel, because the brakes were fine.
All this is to indicate my suspicions about my long time mechanic are not just those typical of many consumers. I have these incidents documented and multiple backing up my concerns.
Was the gelatinous coolant the result of a mix between coolant and transmission fluid in the radiator? Or is the condition returning slowly because the condition came from another source and developed to the gelatinous stage over a long period of time. Remember, the slow shifting did improve after the transmission was flushed and the radiator replaced. Of course, it is also possible the transmission needed to be flushed for other reasons and the radiator was a so called "false positive".
Sorry I'm so windy.
That's about it. Slow shifting. Oh, one more thing. The mechanics second in command said I could overcome the problem by down shifting to #2 and back to drive and that does work.
Bob Franklin
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