I searched the forum for a while and wasn't able to find anyone describing a similar problem to the one I'm having, so here we go. I have 99' 3.2 V6 4x4 Rodeo with 94K .
When I come to a stop in city traffic and start to move again I hear loud thunk. The noise seems to be coming from the transmission. The thunk is hard, almost like someone just took a mallet and hit the transmission. I can feel it in the pedals, my seat and anyone else in the car notices too.
I do not hear the noise every time I accelerate from a stop. I can not seem to find a pattern in what causes the noise. I have tried: hard acceleration, slow acceleration, down steep hills, up steep hills, cold engine, hot engine, and pulling a trailer (I trailer about 1,500 lbs once every 2 months). No pattern as far as I can tell. It could happen in any given situation, maybe 5 out of every 30 start/stop situations.

Recent work done to the car includes all new belts hoses and water pump. Oh yeah new front brakes/rotors too. Suspension was all redone about 35-40K ago.

This is my first car with an auto transmission, so I’m not familiar with transmission failure indications. I’m not sure though that it is even the problem.

Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated. So fire away.

Nice link Dave.

Greasy car parts in the house - :grinyes: - no wife in sight?

THANKS! It looks like that is a job I can do on my own even. If this doesn't solve my problem I'll be sure to post again.

just an FYI, my dealer will do this for me for 50 bucks.

Greasy car parts in the house - :grinyes: - no wife in sight?

Some guys can get away with that lol. My dad cleaned a disassembled transmission in the dishwasher once :screwy: I could do it since I'm not married and live alone, though I did my driveshaft in the parking lot. Pretty simple to do. I even reused the steel band clamps since I carefully took them apart.