Shuddering on '01 Winstar with 90K miles

[sbrubinson]

Originally Posted by trinitus

I got a 00 windstar with a shudder as well. I was told today that I will need a new tranny. My problem is that it only shudder's every once in a while. It has 47500 miles on it and I really do not want to either pay for a new tranny or get rid of this van since it is paid for.

Can some one please tell me what they think it could be? It doesn't show any check engine light and when it shudder's it feels like I just hit a set of those rumple strips.

trinitus -

The transmission has codes that can be read by a special scanner that a dealer or transmission shop would have. My transmission guy did not charge me to do a test drive and read the codes at no charge as well. Then he advised me that the tranny was OK, and it was a "driveability" problem.

Most of the trouble has gone away - see my last post for details), and now it sometimes idles roughly when cold and/or wet, and sometimes stalls. Codes are related to lean fuel mixture and unknown emissions leak. I want to check the fuel injectors before the snow flies, and have bought a "noid light" for that purpose.

Lots of things can cause shuddering. Get a good diagnosis. Even a cheap code reader will at least get you some idea of what is causing the engine light to come on.

[trinitus]

I took it today, to the dealership where I bought it. I got there after it closed so I might have to wait until Tomorrow to find out anything. The check engine light never came on, so I am hopeing that they can find something on their machine. If not maybe they can reproduce the shudder while driving it. My bitter half say' to get this second opinion as the cost to rebuild/replace the tranny is not cheap. Sounds like this is a common problem for the Windstar transmission.

if it comes down to replacing the tranny, I guess it will better than buying a new car. I do hope it is something a little less costly than a transmission though. I will let you guys know what the answer is tomorrow.

[trinitus]

I took it in for a second opinion yesterday, the results were the same. The Torque Converter is going bad. The Transmission chain where I took it to first wanted close to $2000.00 to fix the the problem. It will come with a two year unlimited milage warranty. The Dealership where I bought the van new wants close to $1500.00 with a 12 month or 12000 mile warranty. In either case the van will be out of service until next week.

The Dealership is closer to the house and I have them preform work on all my cars before. They usually do a good job. I had the Transmission chain store work on one car before but when they got done I almost wrecked the car less than three minutes after I picked it up. They didn't put the brake caliper over the rotor properly. Other than that the work they did was good. I believe I will go with the Dealership this time.

[tomj76]

FYI, it could be due to your transmission torque converter clutch. Look to see if you RPMs go up when it shudders. If so, then your transmission might be slipping intermittently.

I had an intermittent shudder that started when the van was about five or six years old, with around 80k miles on it. At the time I thought is was an issue with the suspension, but could never resolve it. It wasn't a big issue since it only was very noticable when doing interstate driving.

Several years later, when the van was eleven years old and it was at 190k miles, the transmission failed. In the process of getting the rebuilt replacement transmission I learned that the transmission torque converter clutch can 'chatter' causing a shuddering of the front end. The chattering is occuring when the clutch is already engaged, causing a loss of lockup during the chattering. Losing lockup allows the RPM to increase, in my case about 300-500 rpm. The shutter doesn't last very long, only a second or two at most, then the clutch re-engages for a while. It can happen frequently (it was as often as once a minute), but normally it only occured once every 5 to 10 minutes.

The rebuilt transmission cost about $1800, and included a 3-year 36k mile warrenty. I believe that the problems with the TCC could have been repaired for under $300 if that was the extent of the problems.