Good idea, I didn't even think of that. I was going to inquire about that for tomorrow (tomorrow as in August 10th) until I found out that someone else already brought it up to them. They were vague, but they said that when they did a road test, the EGR valve set a code that went off and on occaisonally. One thing of note was that the Transaxle Range Switch (PRNDL) code was set in there the entire time they drove it. I was told that he told her that the moment he turned the car on with the tester connected, it popped right up and stayed the entire time. He cleared all the codes out and it came right back up again. However, the SES light was never on, which it is now (and things have changed dramatically).
We cleared everything out with a battery disconnect tonight and the Service Engine Soon light came back on, so I called up a buddy and borrowed his scanner. He has a pretty slick 'Auto X-Ray' scanner that pretty much covers all bases in regards to which vehicles it scans and he lets me use it when I have troubles. However, we couldn't seem to get it to give us what DTCs were set this time, so I am thinking of having them scan it again for me to help me out here (especially since it is free).
So all I have to go on, at least from the 1st scan with out the SES light on, is that the PRDNL/Trans Range Switch indicated a problem to their scanner the entire time it was connected and popped back in when the DTCs were cleared. Any thoughts on that? He did a quick check of the various components (sounds like he was checking the vacuum hoses and whatnot) inside the engine and told her that he was very confused as to why it is having the problems he observed when driving it. Maybe things will be more evident this time around :P. She was impossibly vague, but I know who she was talking about and he told her that he is 100% sure that it is repairable and that the transmission probably won't need any major overhauling of any kind. So that is encouraging, but it is a bit discouraging that a very knowledgeable mechanic that has worked on transmissions for as long as he has is a bit baffled to the point of being really curious as to what went wrong :P.
Thanks for the tip on the solenoid, we will keep that in mind. If I do have to pull the transmission and converter out, at least we're going to be the ones pulling out the engine to get at it
. I can imagine the labor charge just to get at it in that confounded engine would be significant. I'm so glad that they don't mind if we do that part of it ourselves...IF it needs to be pulled out, that is.
I'll let you know what we find out tomorrow, and if your suggestion leads to a resolution!