shaky idle in Drive

weird problem w/1991 corolla, automatic - when i am in drive and sitting still (at a light or something), my car shakes, and i hear like a clicking noise from the front driver's side area. i think it's the transmission. but when i put the car in neutral or park, the shakiness goes completely away and the car feels normal. the clicking noise also stops. so i'm almost sure the clicky noise is coming from the tranny.

the tranny seems to shift just fine, except it goes into 2nd and out of 2nd (when downshifting) a little rough. it's not noticeable unless you are looking at it. otherwise, it's not a big deal. i don't know what the problem is. anyone?

is your check engine light on?

no. i'm certain it's not the engine, but the tranny. fluid looks good, no metal in it. i dunno what the problem could be.

good possibility of the transmisison, maybe second gear wearing out. My car was running rough, and spitting and sputter upon starting it, for about 5 minutes, and running rough the rest of the time. My check engine light was on though, and it was the coolant temperature sensor causing my car to run so rough. That's why I asked if the check engine light was on, it tells much more than there's an engine problem, it's linked into everything that's hooked up through the computer, so that you can get a general read out of what's wrong. When the gears were going out in my transmission, I heard a weird winding up and down sound as I accelerated, or slowed down. At any rate, you might check with a few transmission shops that will do a free diagnosis for ya. It's much better to catch it before you have to do a complete rebuild like I did.

how many miles did yours have on it before the rebuild was necessary, and how much did it cost you?

I believe the car has well over 200,000 miles on it. total (due to a bad car shop, that wouldn't back up the work they claimed to have done) I was out 2,000 on the rebuild on this car. I put it in one shop, who claimed it needed a complete rebuild, paid them $940, got the car back about 2 months later, and within 6 months, it went out again. Finally pulled my head out of my butt, and took it to a reputable shop after the first one told me to piss off, that they'd only done minor repairs, and Paid one of the most highly reputable shops in town $1,200 to fix it. I have allready replaced just about everything else on that car, and it's been a pretty good car overall, so I figured why not. Apparently the previous owners didn't take very good care of it, but I have allready replaced so much on that car, that it paid off for me to do that. The last shop I took it to, did a free diagnosis for me, and called me to let me know what they found out, and about how much it would cost me to fix it.