transmission???? help!!!!!

well we got about a foot and a half of snow here in the last 2 days (NY). i noticed today while driving that my passing gears are all gone and that if i floor the car it slowly accelerates and does not shift. i also noticed that it does not really shift at all even from a complete stop. the rpms will simply climb and climb. i took it on the expressway to see if it'll shift maybe at a higher rpm and speed, but i only got it up to about 50mph due to snow and ice.... the rpms were approx. at 3500 and it did not shift at all. this seems to have started tonight only. yesterday the car was fine! could it be the ice, snow, and cold causing this?? also, on a side note, due to the snow and whatnot, i drove alot in second (automagic - 2 instead of D). i did not go above 25-30 mph yesterday.

any ideas??

thanks guys.

-james

im no expert at all, but the same thing happened to my z a few weeks ago. bad bad news.

it would only go in first, up to about 20mph and it was revving like hell. wouldn't go out of first. took it to the tranny shop, it was the tranny. cost me $750 for a used one/installed... hate to say it but the max is prolly more.

could be weather, or shifter, but if not it's your tranny.


edit: are you sure it didn't go out of first? at 50mph in first your rpm's should be flying very hi. +red

well the strange thing is that from 0-30, no lag in acceleration or anything....climbs pretty normal. from 30-50, rpms don't really climb that high and the rate of increasing speed is the same....again no problems really. it wouldn't bother me so much, except the fact that i really don't think the car is shifting at all. it almost feels like instead of the 4 speed auto, it's just ONE really big gear lol. the car does not feel like it's engine braking if i let off the gas at 50 mph either, so it can't be stuck in 2nd or anything. the acceleration is normal from 0-30mph, so i don't think it could be stuck in 3rd either. and there's no way that you can do 50mph in first gear without some serious downhill action and a nice redline on the tach. really really strange. i'm hoping that its just the weather getting the best of the car today and that it'll clear up tomorrow when it gets a little warmer out. i haven't had any tranny problems up until today. i do a tranny service about every 30,000 miles, and the car has about 84k on it right now. i'm also thinking that since the tires were spinning so much over the past 2 days due to zero traction in this snow and ice, that maybe the ecu is all messed up or something and just needs to be reset. i appreciate the info, and sorry to hear about it happening to a Z. i hope that it's not the tranny, cuz i really don't have the extra cash this time of year to throw at a new tranny.

any other ideas?

When the auto trannys fail for whatever reason it may default to 3rd gear which could explain your no shifting and lack of acceleration from a stop. Probably all you can do in the meantime is shut the car off, let it sit and cool off for a while and try it again. If still stuck in 3rd gear, an electronic problem or.......?? maybe the snow's gotten in somewhere that made your car unhappy. Make sure the fluid is up OK and if the problem persists you'll have to pull codes from the tranny. Does the overdrive light flash when the problem occurs?? Not too sure with your year of max though.
Mark

i've never heard of the tranny defaulting to 3rd gear.....interesting. well i left the car overnight in the driveway and started her up the next morning when it was a little warmer out. she seems to be running back to normal again. i appreciate all of the input and hope that it doesn't happen again. my main concern was that the tranny wasn't quickly dying on me or something.

My Maxima had some tranny problems over the summer, sounds kind of like yours - though my tranny would get stuck in 3rd until it warmed up. The only way I could get going would be to "pop the clutch" for lack of a better term to hit the revs high so the transmission wouldnt bog my engine out.

Could be as simple as a tranny flush, which helped me with all my problems (though $129 isnt exactly ~simple~) or your problems could be a lot deeper than that.

Good luck, let us know what happens.

Also, make sure your floor mat hasnt slid under the pedal. That always happens to me and I freak out thinking that I lost all this power.

under some conditions the transmission switches to "fail-safe" mode, which is basically locking the transmission in third gear. the only thing i've heard is it's triggered by faulty signals from the computer. the manual says to take it to the nissan dealer, but there's probably another solution.

To me it sounds like the tranny might be dying. Last spring the auto in my brother's Lebaron did the same thing. At first it wouldn't shift some days, but then other days it would work fine. Got worse over time, ended up needing a $1500 rebuild. Of course, it didn't have that failsafe mode or anything, and he really beat the crap out of the car, so hopefully it's something less.

I have a 93 Maxima, won't go into reverse, 2nd, or 4th (no O/D). How can I check to see if the A/T control unit errors are set? I know where the ECU is, but where is the A/T control unit?