Transmission started shifting hard into 4th, 5th, and 6th gears. It progressively got worse, especially when it would downshift from 6th to 5th, 5th to 4th etc. to climb a hill or pass another vehicle. Eventually it got to the point it would miss the gear completely and send the RPMs through the roof, and then slam into gear with a big thud that would shake the whole car. FYI, its not good when you go to pass a vehicle on a 2 lane road and have your transmission neutralize (thus no longer propelling you forward) as you are now in the lane of oncoming traffic.
I talked to my transmission guy about it, and called several other shops as well, and they all said the same thing. That it is a really common problem with this 6 speed automatic. They assumed it was the valve body that needed to be replaced, but it could require a full rebuild or replacement of the transmission. We decided to try the valve body first since it was only an $1800 fix instead of $4500. "Lucky" me it worked and fixed the problem, so I only had to put $1800 into the car with 52,000 miles on it instead of $4500!! There is no reason why a car with this low of mileage should need expensive transmission work done.
The curious thing is that when this happened almost a year ago I found TONS of complaints all over the internet about this common problem. Now I can hardly find any mention of it at all anywhere?? Do complaints expire off of this site?? or other sites? All transmission shops know it as being a notorious problem for this transmission, and I think people need to be warned.
Transmission started shifting hard into 4th, 5th, and 6th gears. It progressively got worse, especially when it would downshift from 6th to 5th, 5th to 4th etc. to climb a hill or pass another vehicle. Eventually it got to the point it would miss the gear completely and send the RPMs through the roof, and then slam into gear with a big thud that would shake the whole car. FYI, its not good when you go to pass a vehicle on a 2 lane road and have your transmission neutralize (thus no longer propelling you forward) as you are now in the lane of oncoming traffic.
I talked to my transmission guy about it, and called several other shops as well, and they all said the same thing. That it is a really common problem with this 6 speed automatic. They assumed it was the valve body that needed to be replaced, but it could require a full rebuild or replacement of the transmission. We decided to try the valve body first since it was only an $1800 fix instead of $4500. "Lucky" me it worked and fixed the problem, so I only had to put $1800 into the car with 52,000 miles on it instead of $4500!! There is no reason why a car with this low of mileage should need expensive transmission work done.
The curious thing is that when this happened almost a year ago I found TONS of complaints all over the internet about this common problem. Now I can hardly find any mention of it at all anywhere?? Do complaints expire off of this site?? or other sites? All transmission shops know it as being a notorious problem for this transmission, and I think people need to be warned.
- tyota25, Lehi, UT, US