Not Shifting

have 1998 kia sophia transmission stays in second gear at all times, but will shift manually fine. any ideas

I know next to nothing about a/t, but I think there is a solenoid for each gear, perhaps that has gone out. I'm not sure what else could go wrong.

I'm guessing you already checked the fluid level?

od light on? if so its speed sensor. other than that im clueless

d_e_d brings up a decent point, as driving around with the od off is the sort of thing I would do... :D

I checked to see that there are three soloniods, and they all are "active" for third and fourth gear.

so consideri9ng you can shift manually, i would put order of likelyness

1-low fluid
2-OD switch malfunction (ok, but this would only cause a problem in 4th gear maybe?)
3-speed sensor malfunction (from my understanding, i think this would affect the spedometer as well, but maybe no necesarily)
4-turbine speed sensor malfunction
5-solenoid valve (last as i think if this didn't work the manual shift wouldn't either)

Checking your DTC's might give some more insight as I'm not sure if the other various sensorswould cause an "auto" malfunction while still allowing manual shift...

If your planning on tackleing this on your own, good luck! (i should be able to check what the apt resistances of the different sensors should be if you do give it a go)

the speed sensor makes the speedo go nuts and the car runs very oddly. it will rev when started and slowly descend down to idle. its a high rev too. maybe even runs 2500 to 3 grand