The car has a problem that when I shift into (R) or (D), it shift w/ a hard thump. When shifted onto (D) it gets stuck on 1st gear and won't shift over. Now I can't drive it anywhere. It's a 2.5 w/ auto trans. Anyone knows anything about this?

Mine did the same thing. Shop suggested seal kit about $90. When they tore it down, a pin had come loose inside the transmission and ground a groove into the casing and basically destroyed the transmission. I replaced it with a junkyard tranny with 50,000 miles on it and used the open seal kit (not returnable). No problems for 30,000 miles since.

What's an open seal kit?

A seal kit (for the tranny) that has been opened by the repair tech and thus made unreturnable.