Aurora stuck in 3rd gear HELP!

[Chaodyn]

I own a stock 1995 aurora with 100,000 miles on it. While driving on the highway the service engine soon light came on and the car switched to 3rd gear and jumped from 2000 to 5500rpm. Now whenever I drive it, the car starts fine with no "check engine light" etc and it runs fine up to around 40mph or so and then within 30 seconds or so of running above 40 then the service engine light comes on again and it switches to 3rd gear. I believe it has to be some electronic problem because I have taken it up to 70mph before the service engine light comes on and it changes gears fine etc. So far I have taken it to 3 mechanics. After hooking it up to their scanner the computer found around 10 problems with the car. (I will post the codes later). One of these was the TPS which I changed for a new one. The last mechanic I went to said that it was probably a short in some wiring but he couldn't find it. The car has shown no change and I would really like to know whats going on. My parents are talking about how a nice (read: slow) a honda accord would be for me. PLEASE HELP! I dont want to lose my favorite car!

[baron1701]

hi.

Read my post on EGR TPS overdive. Its only a few days old. I had a similar problem. Make sure that the TPS you replace is the right one for your car and that the EGR valve is clean. If you talk to a mechanic chances are that they know shit about the N* engine or the 4t80e tranny. I am a 23yr old sales coordinator. I can afford to have garages work on my car but screw that. I grew up in a garage and i have the manuals. My last job was at a caddy dealership as a salesperson. I knew more about the aurora than most of those ASE certified mechanics. The Aurora is the car that god himself would build if he needed a daily driver. You have speed, fuel economy, handling ect..

My point is, dont get discouraged. There are more than enough people who are very good mechanics that drove an Aurora and fell in love. This forum is the best place to look. Every thing other than a headgasket or a transmision can be a do it yourself job. You did right by having the codes checked, wish I was so smart. Once you post the codes we can have a better idea.

PS ---

Tell your parents that your Aurora paid for more than a years worth salary of an average GM employee and his family in the mid 90's. It's a 37,000 dollar car.

BUY AMERICAN !!!

[griffey]

baron,



I *love* our Aurora.

But "fuel economy?"

At super-premium-only gas prices, and 18 or so miles per gallon, I don't know that I think "fuel economy" is a good selling point for this car.

Blow Camaros off the line? Sure.
Great sound system? Sure.
Need to get from 30 mph to 80 mph in, well, pretty quick? FABULOUS.
Expensive to fix? Yeah, not so fun...

In all, a quite worthwhile car--and I'm sorry that my wife has taken over ours after the loss of our (piece of junk) minivan and forced me to drive an underpowered 2-door Pontiac with fuel injector problems.

No more Auroras, but plenty of Cavaliers and G60s (or whatever they are). Sigh....

G.--

[Chaodyn]

hey thanks a lot. I got it back from the shop today and the guy had no idea haha. He needed a more powerful computer scanner to confirm what was wrong with it that he didnt have so tomorrow or maybe the day after im taking it to someplace else. With the scanner that they had they found that theres a problem with the "shift solenoid" and its n "A" ratio problem". My cars computer isnt accurate with its gear selection. The mechanic said he was checking it and the computer was reading Neutral as being drive and reverse as being neutral etc. And these wouldnt just stay at reverse being drive they changed randomly (example drive that once read reverse on the computer then read neutral....completely random). The mechanic also believed it may be a speed input sensor that may be causing it. Thats all he could tell me. Hope that helps!!!

[dsatt12]

I'd say you're on the right track with the shift solenoids. 95 and some early 96s have a badly designed filter holder in the solenoid case on the side of the tranny. In high mileage cars especially (where the filter it holds gets a little plugged up and creates backpressure) the plastic holder can break and lead to failure of the shift solenoids on either side.

The only thing that doesn't jive with when my 95 did this is that I could never get it to stay in 3rd gear. It'd shift up, then drop right back out.

There is a repair kit made just for this containing the two solenoids, the filter, and the filter bracket made out of aluminum. It was $145 a few years back when I got mine. All told I think my bill was about $300 to fix this.

I should also point out that I at a later date also had an intermittent fault in the vehicle speed sensor in the tranny. Apparently this does take a specialized scan tool to read the transmission sensor outputs and such, as the regular garages I took mine to couldn't help me. The symptoms of this for me were that it would make a horrendous bang going into drive from park or reverse, and shift a little hard otherwise. The tranny shop said usually when the car was completely cold the vss wouldn't report the speed of the engine to the tranny or vice-versa, so when I put it in gear the two fought. My motor/tranny mounts were the innocent victims in this little war. I hope you don't have this going bad- that ran me waay more $$.

My best suggestion is to ask your regular mechanic who they trust for transmission repairs. Most normal garages send their hardcore tranny work out to a specialist. I had two of my favorite garages recommend the same place and they figured out the intermittent thing that had been going on (like once a month maybe) for 4 years. He was the man

Good luck.

[baron1701]

I had my transmision crap out on me on the way to Arizona - from Mass. The job in AZ cost me 3000 and involved rebuilding the whole tranny. Frankly I was 'had' but I was stuck accross the country w/ a problem I knew little about. If it comes down to it, have a cmopany like COTTMAN transmissions of AAmco that specializes in transmissions look at the codes that are coming out. They will usually look at it for free if they think they will get the business. The 1995 requires a special scanner and an experienced person using that scanner in order to get the right info.

If the tranny shop says that its just the solenoids- then if nothing else is messed up, look for the kit (buy it yourself!!! they will rape you for parts cost) and have them replace the bracket, filter, and solenoids.

If your tranny is spitting codes left and right like mine did. Replace / rebuild time. Price the job around and get a Guarenteed quote for the total rebuild. Usually about 1800 - 3000 will get you there.

If thats too much money for yer, which I understand. Get qoutes for just the labor charge of an install. You can buy fully warrantied rebuilds from ebay for under $800. If you can find a shop that'll put it in for 500-800 then it may be worth it.

[Sweet William]

I would say shift solenoids also. Code is P094 I beleive. 95 system is OBDI. Autozone can't read it. After 95 everything is OBDII.
Last update kit I bought was around $60. Two solenoids, new filter, filter bracket, and longer bolt. Can be done in your driveway in a couple of hours if ya aint feared of pulling the valve body out of the tranny. Good directions are on this forum somewhere.

Griffey, if you only get 18mph you get a little less than some of us see. I have two 95's right now. One with the Autobahn and one without. they both get around 21-22mpg city and will do 25-26 at 80mph. Pretty nice for a 5000lb car with a v8. I run high grade fuel every two or three tanks is all. Been doing it for four years with one car.
The only Camaro your going to blow off the line is one that runs really bad. It does not take much to beat this motor off the line. I had an old corsica with a 3.8l (stock & beat) that would kick its ass for the first hundred yards. The 4.0 has to be running some rpm's to make power. Maybe thats why your mileage is so bad...Just try to lighten up a little with the right foot!

[dsatt12]

I'm in total agreement on the mileage as Sweet William said. I get about 22mph on the highway, but mine's also got 203k miles on it, so I'll cut it some slack. My city driving isn't too much different for economy, as much as I do at any rate. While I live in Des Moines, IA- if I'm not going to the mall, I'm pretty much driving in the country.

I had my solenoids done at Cottman as someone suggested. They totally dropped the ball on the harder fix with the intermittent sensor though. Two trips down there with no clue as to what was doing it even though it clunked every time you engaged the tranny at that point was just unacceptable.

[Chaodyn]

Well I took my aurora down to the dealership yesterday and they said they could probably fix it. Today they called and said that the entire car computer was "probably" causing the problem and needed to be replaced so theres $600 spent that they HOPE will fix the problem. I'll let y'all know how it turns out.

[griffey]

Should I mention that my wife is driving the car now, and she drives like a bat out of hell, and that's probably the MPG situation now.

As far as Camaros... there are enough newer Camaros with V6 engines in them that, yes, I blow off the line if they are attempting to hurry up and get ahead before a merge because they have a "cool" car. I've done the same thing in a supercharged Park Avenue. Dingbats in their standard V6 mustangs/camaros/etc. need to realize that just because their car "looks" cool, doesn't mean that it is the fastest thing on the planet.

And again, I don't go around looking to race with my old-person luxury car, but it is fun when some dork pulls up alongside when the two lanes are going to merge into one after the stoplight and they try to gun it and I just, well, they lose.

[Chaodyn]

Well the dealership wanted 4000$ to replace the entire tranny because theyre lazy lol. So we called another shop and they will fix it for 400$ and if they have to replace it the most it will cost is 1000$! Much better than 4000$ lol.

[97 silverbullet]

try changing your vehicle speed sensor, thats on the top of the tranny a 60 dollar part fixed my 3 gear problem. I could only shift to third gear and it wouldn't go any further I thought it was the shift selonoids but it turned out it wasn't.

[dsatt12]

Originally Posted by 97 silverbullet

try changing your vehicle speed sensor, thats on the top of the tranny a 60 dollar part fixed my 3 gear problem.

I *wish* that was all it was when I had my trouble with that sensor (at a later date). I think I was only charged $70 or so for that sensor, but the "some disassembly required" portion of the bill was what hurt...

Is it really that easy to get to? The tranny shop implied it was in there a ways, and they might as well fix some other stuff once they got there. Granted, tranny's still going great another 40k miles later, but that would be a little annoying that they lived up to the stereotype of the mechanic exaggerating and fixing extra stuff that isn't broken.

[Chaodyn]

Well it's finally fixed....only took 6 weeks and a lot of annoyances! The shop couldnt figure out the problem so they just changed the whole transmission (1500---OUCH). On the plus side my babys pullin harder throughout the power curve than she ever did before lol. Thanks a lot for all the help!

[kiway22]

So thats how much it cost to replace a tranny?