Auto transmission acting funny, ideas?

Tacoma747

Tacoma747

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2005
Location
Winston-Salem
It's in my sister's car, 2002 Mazda Protege 5.

120K on the car, guessing on factory ATF, starting doing this the other day, I dropped the pan, changed the filter and put in 3 fresh qts of ATF, even added some Lucas no-slip stuff too.

When giving it 75% throttle, when it goes to shift from 2nd to 3rd, it revs up more than it should, kind of like it pops into neutral, then kicks into 3rd. Other than that, 1,2,3 work fine, as does reverse. 4th will ONLY pull at VERY light throttle, I am talking BARELY pushing the pedal, you can forget going up a hill. Any more than 10% throttle, if just acts like it's in neutral.

Thinking the clutch bands in the trans, but it's odd they just all the sudden went out, or is that normal?

Any other ideas?
 
When I changed out the fluid in my wifes 2004 mazda 3 it required some special fluid, was a synthetic type, car quest had it in stock. The wrong fluid can hurt these..

Also the was a cool external tran oil cooler that had 2 water lines and 2 atf lines in it, I used that and it made it simple to flush the converter also.

I'm actually due to change it again... Gonna hit 100k on it this next week...
 
It's a Mazda (Ford). It needs a transmission. If you went 120k without servicing it, when you did finally service it, you washed all the sludge that was sealing it up off, now it leaks like a sieve internally. Automatic transmissions need to be serviced every 30k. I don't care if it's "lifetime" fluid or not. If you service the trans regularly, you extend the "lifetime" of the trans.

In all honesty, "lifetime" fluid is a misnomer. It's the lifetime of the unit. Meaning when the fluid wears out, the unit dies.
 
I don't know if it has ever been serviced, but I doubt it has. The only reason I changed the fluid was because the trans was acting up, and it calls for Mercon V ATF, I added Lucas only because I was hoping for a quick fix (to give her time to decide if she wants to fix or sell the car).
 
Oh well then it sounds like it was shot before. Mazda's Autos in their small cars were never very good. Had a buddy that had a 323 that had a reman in it when they bought it at like 60k and by the time it hit 120 they had to put another one in it.
 
It's just weird, they said it was working, then just all the sudden it stopped working, I would have thought it would go 'slowly', BUT I didn't drive it before it was broken, so I don't know how well it pulled in 4th gear then.

Anyone know a good auto trans rebuilder in the winston-salem area? I am sure it would be cheaper to get it rebuilt than to buy a complete transmission.
 
it could be several things.
the first thing would be shift solenoid "a" , but usually throws a p0750 code when it goes bad.
the most common problem with these units is the end cover wears out and causes ring grove in the direct drum.
i have seen where the servo pin bore wears out in the case and the case had to be bored and sleeved for the servo pin(least likely senario)
 
Couple trans shops agree that the trans is shot, so it looks like it will be getting rebuilt. Wish I could find a 'rebuilt' trans I could swap into it, but there is nothing around, and the shops don't knock enough off the price to make it worthwhile for me to swap it out myself.

One quoted $1600
The other quoted $2000-$2200 with a new torque converter (gets my vote)

Just glad I am not paying for it...
 
anyone that quotes you a price without a converter is ripping you off. they are going to "repair" the unit and weasel out of a warranty by not replacing the converter.
this unit would leave my shop for between $17-19 with a 12/12 nationwide warranty.
 
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