92 Maxima Tranny issue

To make a long story short,My uncle recently died and his daughter is in town wrapping things up. He had a 1992 Maxima with only 16k miles on it. Before he died he took the car to the dealer for transmission issues.
The dealer will only tell us that the car needs $5000 in repairs and the lowlife service manager is trying to buy the car for next to nothing. he won't tell me whats wrong with it. we had the car towed back to the house and I am trying to help out here and was wondering if any of you had ideas of what to check. I heard of this gen maxima having trans issues, knew one guy who went thru 3 in less in than 5 years but I also know one with 215k on it and still going.
The car is NOT for sale, my only goal is to get it repaired, worst case scenario being taking it into a shop to have the unit replaced.
thanks in advance for any help.

Check charge voltage, then run self diag, swap oil and ... read pages 14&15 http://www.cardomain.com/ride/748507/24

Ok, the car is at my place, checked charging, fluids and a quick visual. everything looks ok. When you put the car in gear, NOTHING happens. RPM stays the same, no noise, no load, nothing at all. Linkage was checked and its all connected. I read something about a "soft gear on the governer shaft" fron the cardomain link. anyone know more about this?