99 Ford Taurus (24 valve) Transmission problem?

[Tohot2se]

I bought the car in 2000 off a year lease...a year later the transmission went out..as I was pulling in my driveway...(Thank goodness). It had 48,000 miles on it when it went out. Ford replaced the trany...and now is out of warenty at 91,000 miles.

THe problem, is...every so often..when for ie..getting on the highway..and your excellerating to speed..and need to lift off of gas...due to traffic..then pressing on the gas again to excellerate again..it seems to hesitate/search for a lil longer before kicking back to where it needs to be.

As I said this does not happen all the time....

I had the transmision put on a machine at the shop..all everything looks good..no bad codes came back or anything....

Is this just normal for a 24 valve...perhaps in the computer sensor for the overdrive (I keep the button on for overdrive)...perhaps..just as it was going to kick into sensored overdrive and I backed off the gas..then back into it..is causeing the hesitation for a few seconds longer...or could it be a clutch. ITs driving me nuts..cause no one can find anything wrong with it...without using the computer test on a test drive at $90 an hour...which is hard to do..being it only happens one in a great while....

or am i just paranoid? or is this how the overdrive/24 valve on this car works?

I am not sure what to do..cause two diff places told me..if I change the transmission fluid..or flush it out..and it is something wrong within the tranny..it will make it worse cause the new fluid would be thinner then the fluid in there now..which could cause even more slippage (?)...and I am due for a tranny fluid change.

Any suggestions would be greatfully appricated.

[drdisque]

yes, my '99 Duratec does this and my grandma's brand new '98 Duratec also did this. The gap between 3rd and 4th is really big and being an AX4N, it doesn't have Synchonizers, this can cause very firm downshifts during full throttle and very indecisive upshifts after full throttle. My advice to you is to always just give the car time to upshift after you're done accelerating after forcing a downshift.

[Tohot2se]

So this is just normal then...and I shouldnt be freaking out?

[GPFred]

You might have your exhaust checked. Mine did this as well and it turned out to be the catalytic converter was plugged and needs replacing. Apparently it causes back pressure to build beyond normal causing it to feel like tranny braking or odd shifting at highway speed. Good luck.