Transmission questions

Purchased a 2000 intrigue about a month ago, found this post and am questioning my purchase especially regarding the tranny. ON the initial test drive with 70K on it everything was excellent, smooth shifting. After taking the intrigue on its first 120 mile trip, i stopped parked it shut it off. When i restarted the engine was still hot, when i took off i got on it pretty hard, it shot through gears 1-2 fine, when it got about red line it struggled to find 3rd and shifted kind of rough, and jerky nothing like a i thought a 2000 intrigue should. I finished out the trip and everything shifted fine, the next time i got on it hard everything shifted nice and smooth. I am wondering if this is a start to a problem?, or just one of the many sensors, not sensing my driving style, cause the rough shift, any insight is appreciated. Tranny fluid is good in color and smell.

I cleaned my throttle body and added a Valvoline Synthetic engine cleaner fuel additive. It is better than it was. Throttle body is hard to clean thoroughly because of its location.

Change your Transmission fluid and filter about every 35,000-50,000 miles. If you have changed the transmission fluid recently or suspect that the fluid is still in good condition, I would recomend adding some Lubeguard Red transmission additive. This stuff is used and recognized by almost all transmission shops. The main cause of transmission failure is degradation of the fluid and the main cause of fluid degradation is excess heat. Lubeguard is a synthetic additive which works well to prevent this.

You can buy Lubeguard at any transmission shop or at Autozone packaged by Aamco (will say Lubeguard somewhere on the bottle). After good maintenance, you are doing about all you can to make your transmission long-lasting.

I would forgo the treatments and switch to synthetic ATF. Just take a look at some of the statistics and you'll see that synthetic fluids are vastly superior to their petroleum-based counterparts and well worth the extra $ if you intend to keep your car for a while. They are much better at providing protection/lubrication at low temperatures and much more resistant to thermal breakdown. And you don't need to change them as frequently (because they don't wear out like petroleum byproducts - remember, gasoline is petroleum-based and it burns like, well, like gasoline!) No, I don't sell synthetic fluids; I just am very happy with their performance.

I plan on changing my fluid at 30,000 miles on my 02.I may put in Amsoil tranny fluid.Does the Torque converter have a drain plug?
I know on my 99 Crown Vic,changing the tranny fluid/TC is very simple.

No, no drain plug for either the converter or the pan. I was told by several sources, including dealer, that you need to flush the system through the cooler lines to get a complete drain/refill (including the torque converter). I changed the fluid several times (with 1,000 or so miles in between - to allow the fluid to flow throught the system) by dropping the pan - not very efficient but cheaper than getting someone else to flush and fill with synthetic ATF. In the long run I will save money because I won't be changing the synthetic often - if ever.

Oh - intrigued00 - I must have been sleeping the first time I replied to your message....did you find your problem? I bought a used '00 and had a similar issue with my tranny. I took it to the dealer (it was Certified Used) and they replaced the pressure control solenoid. Seemed to cure the problem. Don't know for sure if this is your problem, but your symptoms sound similar to mine. The problem was really only evident when the car was warm and at medium or wide-open throttle.

by taking the cooler lines off,that will drain out both the TC and the pan?
That doesn't sound too bad,it may be easier than my Ford.

That's what they say.....you can try it yourself - I don't know how draining through the lines clears the fluid in the TC......but that's what the dealer claims. I'm not clear on how often the fluid in the TC "turns over", if at all, and what causes it to do so. Hopefully it is pumped through continuously by the fluid pump. You may want to talk to a mechanic about this. If you find out any more about this I would like to know.

Hi, I have the shop manuals for my '99 and I don't find any fluid change procedure - my Ford manual gives a procedure, basically to overfill the tranny then run the engine until the tranny pumps out half of the fluid via the cooler line. I have done this and it worked pretty well. Olds on the other hand does not describe such a procedure. It references the cooler lines but only for flushing the cooler, not removing fluid - doesn't mean it can't be done, it just doesn't detail it. It gives specs of 13.4 QT total, with 7.4QT replaced with a pan drop. If you do pull a cooler line, I would simply measure what you take out and put back the same.

Good luck