96 taurus wagon wont shift into first

[mail_lady]

Ok, I need some input. I took my 96 taurus wagon to get front end work done, on the way the transmission line broke. They changed the line, flushed the cooler and reinstalled it and changed the filter. Now my car wont shift into first unless I do it manually. when it hits about 30 mph it's fine. I had absolutely no problem with my transmission shifting until now. I'm a mail carrier, so shifting it manually at every mailbox isnt a viable option. Thanks for any advice.

[bellaCuba]

Sounds like the line breaking may have caused something to fail in the trans. Taurus transmissions are notorious to have failures. The AXODE/AX4S (in a 96 Windstar but found in some Tauruses & very similarto the AX4N found on the other Tauruses ) I've had to rebuild recently & found out how bad they are in the process.
For one, the trans cooler is much too small in the stock setup. Also, there are issues with the cooling fans for the low speeds or for idle. The lack of fan functions contributes to the overheating in the trans. The dropping resistor (which have been discontinued BTW ) are prone to corrosion and failing. I'm still trying to find a way to bypass that after finding this part failed, on the very same Windstar trans I rebuilt.

I suggest a trans shop for your issue because this is not something a regular repair shop can diagnose. Look at the reviews on various sites such as Google, Yelp, FB, etc, to help choose the trans shop. This way there is less chance of having unnecessary work done.

PS. For sh*ts & giggles, try disconnecting the battery for 5 mns. Then reconnect, in order to reset the computer. In your case, it may help. Post back with an update, especially if that helped. Or if you wind up going to the trans shop, their diagnosis, etc. ...