Hey All,

On and off over the last year, and just recently, I’ve been having what seems to be a transmission issue with my 2004 3.0.

Sometimes (rarely) when I have the car in park, the RPM’s will suddenly jump and hold at around 2000, and the transmission light (red gear with an exclamation point) will light up. Turning the car off for a few seconds and starting it back up resolves the issue. I once made the mistake when this first happened of putting the car into reverse, to the unsettling sound of grinding and a jolt once it settled into gear. It’s also strange because when this “slip” occurs, it doesn’t put power into the wheels or anything. It just feels like the engine detached from the transmission and is now free to rev up without that load.

This seems to happen more frequently in the colder months, although I remember it happening once or twice over the summer as well. Engine temperature doesn’t seem to be a factor, as it has happened both when cold and up to temperature.

I should note that this is a different situation than the transmission getting stuck in park when it’s cold, which I believe points to the temperatures as thickening up the transmission fluid. This is different, as the car can be sitting in park just fine, until it suddenly revs up without any interference.

No check engine codes pop up when this happens, so there’s not much I can do in terms of looking it up, and I haven’t found this issue anywhere online for any car. The car used to have a vacuum leak from the lines at the top of the manifold, but I’ve fixed that, with no more codes coming up for that. It also idles fine and gets proper mileage, so there’s that guess pretty much defeated.

The car is approaching 140,000 miles, so the case could be made that the gears are probably wearing down, but it shifts while in drive as smooth as you could expect a 17 year old car to shift.

Any guesses as to what this could be? I’m getting a little worried about it because I’m stuck in a delivery job for the time being while I look for a different line of work, so the car spends a lot of time running and in park. Anything helps!

 

jaden, I don't think your problem is necessarily with the transmission. I say that because the engine RPMs are changing and going too high. Even if you completely removed the tranny from the car should the RPMs go up that high just sitting there. I would say before getting too far into things to buy a $5 can of throttle body cleaner (not carb cleaner) and pull the intake tube off of the throttle body and if you see brown, wash it away. Use your finger to manually open the throttle body and spray in there to clean out there. Look at the end of the butterfly (the silver disc that blocks the air flow). Make sure the thin edge there is clean (may need to take a rag and wipe the edge). When you go to start the car, odds are it is going to be flooded (like what happens with an old carb car). When you go to start the car, depress the gas pedal all the way to the floor (this is a command to the car to not admit fuel, but to cycle air through the engine). Let the engine rotate that way for say 5 seconds and then slowly let off of the gas pedal as you continue to crank the car. It should catch and feather the gas as needed to bring the car up to idle speed.

Lets see what you have at that point and then we can go from there.

 

Hello Jaden,

Along with Thermo's suggestion, I might also look at the transmission linkage and possibly shifter cabling. I acquired an '04 X-Type with 93K miles on it because the previous owner thought the transmission was slipping. My car experienced some of the same symptoms you're describing. After some time spent diagnosing my car (getting under it and moving the linkage at the transmission housing with my hands), I determined that the shift linkage was bound-up/corroded not letting the car go all the way into R and D. I did end up replacing the shifter cable between the shifter selector in car and the transmission - this was not the problem. Actually cleaning up all the linkage and lubricating it allowed the cable to move linkage so that the car went all the way into R and D.

Best,
Scott