Frenchyalex
New LVC Member
Just wanted to share my experience to add data to previous posts addressing this issue.
136,000 miles, 20+years old V8. Daily driver.
Symptoms appeared "all of a sudden" one morning.
- Very hard jerk when shifting to reverse.
- Rough shift from 3 to 4. How rough felt random but probably related to car being cold or not and driving conditions. Always noticeable, sometimes not too bad, sometimes made me grind my teeth. Bad enough that you don't want to drive the car for fear of damaging the transmission for good.
Replaced the AT solenoid pack with a supposedly new Bosh one. Did the filter and fluid at the same time. Did the level with that nipple tool thing.
No improvement, zero. Made me question the new solenoid pack, my leveling of the AT fluid etc. Until I read about the PCM here.
Took PCM out of the car, sent it to SIA electronics. They repaired and shipped it in less than 12 hours.
Put the PCM back in the car and voila. Everything is back to normal.
Seeing how fast it was for them to fix it, I am going to guess it was something like a couple of FETs that were going out and could no longer drive the solenoids properly. They add warranty seals when they send it back so I did not open the module to see what parts looked like they were changed.
Anyways... You could argue that taking the module out and sending it for inspection and repair is easier and cheaper than doing the solenoids. Something to consider doing first? Especially if you are not in a hurry (I might have gotten lucky with how fast mine was taken care of). Then again, it probably did not hurt to change those at that age.
136,000 miles, 20+years old V8. Daily driver.
Symptoms appeared "all of a sudden" one morning.
- Very hard jerk when shifting to reverse.
- Rough shift from 3 to 4. How rough felt random but probably related to car being cold or not and driving conditions. Always noticeable, sometimes not too bad, sometimes made me grind my teeth. Bad enough that you don't want to drive the car for fear of damaging the transmission for good.
Replaced the AT solenoid pack with a supposedly new Bosh one. Did the filter and fluid at the same time. Did the level with that nipple tool thing.
No improvement, zero. Made me question the new solenoid pack, my leveling of the AT fluid etc. Until I read about the PCM here.
Took PCM out of the car, sent it to SIA electronics. They repaired and shipped it in less than 12 hours.
Put the PCM back in the car and voila. Everything is back to normal.
Seeing how fast it was for them to fix it, I am going to guess it was something like a couple of FETs that were going out and could no longer drive the solenoids properly. They add warranty seals when they send it back so I did not open the module to see what parts looked like they were changed.
Anyways... You could argue that taking the module out and sending it for inspection and repair is easier and cheaper than doing the solenoids. Something to consider doing first? Especially if you are not in a hurry (I might have gotten lucky with how fast mine was taken care of). Then again, it probably did not hurt to change those at that age.