Help A/T will not shift out of first gear

[colins97rs]

Back in Nov my son drove his 97 RS thru a flooded section of road. It didn't look like there was any damage but about a week later the car wouldn't shift out of first gear. The SEL came on with codes like P0701,P0700 and a few other codes I can't remember. He took it in to the local shop and they said there was some water damage to the tranmission ECM. They cleaned the connections and installed a new ECM. The car ran fine for about a week when it started doing the same thing again with the same codes. He took it back and they said there might be some internal damage and he should take it to a tranmission shop. When he got it over to the transmission shop they first changed the shift solenoid, no luck. They than did a complete rebuilt of the transmission with a new valve body, torque converter, overdrive clutch and filter and fluid.The car ran fine for a few days the same problem happened again. Three times he took it back and they made some adjustments thinking that would fix it but no luck. The ECM would go in to a fault mode and wouldn't let the car shift out of first gear. It's now back to the first shop to have the ECM replaced again and that should happen tomorrow. I'm at my wits end, is there anything else that could be causing this problem!! So far the guys at the two repair shops have been pretty good about trying to fix this problem. But after 2 months what else do I need to do to get this thing fixed. Any help from you guys would be great.

 

[VETTE_50_TH]

Check the shift solenoids and pulse generators. I've read the some of the shift solenoids die for certain gears before. Best bet, go buy the outrageously priced factory service manual from mitsu, and test each solenoid. BTW, are they replacing the TCU or fixing it, each time?

James

 

[VETTE_50_TH]

I know this is for a 1g, but still the same concept.

TCU GUIDE

hope that helps.

James

 

[colins97rs]

As always you guys come thru with some good advice. Pulse generator sounds like the next thing to check. The shop replaced the TCU again with no luck, same problem. It sound like a sensor feeding into the TCU is going bad. At first the car would run good for about a week before we would have to take it back to the shop. Than it would last about 3 days and after that about a day. Because my son has the car at college I'm going to have him take it to the local dealer ($$). So far I've spent about $4000 trying to get this car fixed. I've done a lot of the work on the car myself but the transmission is a little more than I can handle right now. Thanks for the info.

 

[colins97rs]

The dealer had the car for 2 weeks trying to figure what the problem was. Turns out it was the transmission control relay was shorting out the TCM. The dealer installed a new relay ($42) and replaced the TCM under warranty. The first shop got the TCM from the dealer. It's been a week and so far so good. Total cost at the dealer was two hours labor and $42 for the relay.

 

[MissionSk8r21]

The dealer had the car for 2 weeks trying to figure what the problem was. Turns out it was the transmission control relay was shorting out the TCM. The dealer installed a new relay ($42) and replaced the TCM under warranty. The first shop got the TCM from the dealer. It's been a week and so far so good. Total cost at the dealer was two hours labor and $42 for the relay.

Do you have the part number for the relay? Im having the exact same problem. I called the dealer and they told me the part is obsolete and no one will have it.

 

[2GBurntOrange]

I found one on ebay. Some of other threads were helpful I ordered one yesterday hopefully it should be here tomorrow because honestly I'm tired of my car not shifting out of 2nd gear we've changed the tranny.. fuel pump.. and some other things hopefully the relay fixes the problem because it keeps blowin the Engine fuse. I'm sick of my precious car being down :\. Buttt I don't know if it'll work for yours, did you pull the relay and look at the numbers on the top of it? and then do a search possibly?