1996 Grand Voyager Tranny Problems

Two months ago I had transmission oil changed for my 1996 grand
voyager at Canadian Tire (CT) in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Now the
transmission is having problems. It goes from 1st to 2nd smoothly but
does not shifts to the 3rd and keeps on slipping.

I have shown it to another mechanic and he mentioned that CT may have
used improper transmission fluid. He recommended twice flushing the
fluid, replace it with ATF+4 and still no guarantees that it will
work. CT advised me that they use Quaker State's (QS) Multi-Purpose
Transmission Fluid (MPTF) which according to QS meets the ATF+4
specs.

Is QS MPTF really suitble for 1996 Grand Voyager transmission?

 

No it is not. "Universal" transmission fluid is not suitable for
transmissions
needing ATF +4 or, for that matter, transmissions needing type F. It is
nothing more than a variant of Dexron.

However, you also didn't say if the transmission was original, and what the
mileage on it is.

If your van has more than 150K miles on it, on an original transmission,
the clutches in it were probably very close to being worn out anyway,
and the fluid just pushed them over the edge.

If the clutches in your transmission were in excellent shape, then you would
have almost certainly gone many many more thousands of miles before
seeing problems.

If this is a high mileage transmission then consider yourself lucky that you
made the mistake when the transmission was about at the end of it's service
life anyway. It needs to be rebuilt. And to find a suitable rebuild shop,
it
is very simple. Call around and ask each rebuild shop you are considering
what kind of transmission fluid they use if they rebuild your transmission.
If they say anything other than ATF +3 or ATF +4, then hang up and
call the next shop.

Ted

 

Hello,

I would try changing back to ATF +4 before giving up -- there seem to
be reports online that sometimes car returns to a drivable shape
again.

You do NOT need to go a to a mechanic to change your fluid. You can
simply go to CT and pick up an "automotive fluid pump" -- it is a red
plastic contraption with a hand operated piston and two connectors for
inline and outlet hoses. Then you can go to the section where they
sell clear tubing and pick up 10 feet or so of clear tubing of the
correct diameter that would fit into the pump's connectors (I simply
took the pump out of its packaging in the store and played around with
it)


Once you assemble the contraption you can feed the clear tubing down
the transmission dipstick pipe until it does not want to go down
anymore -- you are ready. Now simply pump out the existing fluid into
a suitable container -- note that you will pump out only about 50% of
the fluid as the rest is in the torque converter.

Now you can drive around the block and repeat the procedure. Since the
fluid will mix as a result you will see that after two changes you
would have replaced about 75% of fluid with ATF +4 -- should be enough
to tell you whether the car will run better on the new fluid...

If you are more inclined to do a "flush" you can disconnect
transmission cooler hose from the radiator and start the car -- it
will be pumping out fluid at about a quart a minute -- the trick here
is to ensure that you do not let the fluid level drop to below add in
the transmission -- you have to be continuously adding fluid. You can
stop once you pumped through about 8-10 liters of fluid.


NOTE: You can pick up ATF +4 from any dealer for about $25 CND for 4L.

In my opinion it is worth a try -- you risk about $50 in fluid and $25
in pump and hoses for something that has about 30-40% chance of saving
you the cost of rebuild.

P.S. http://www.pzlqs.com/Tech/Pdsheet/Q...df/MultiVehicleAutomaticTransmissionFluid.pdf
-- is the link to the spec sheet on the fluid CT put in. QS uses an
extremely vague language -- it says that the fluid is fully compatible
with Dextron/Mercon, etc but it DOES NOT say that it is compatible
with ATF+4 specs. They merely say that it is recommended for chrysler
transmissions. In my opionion it is NOT COMPATIBLE. When Chrysler
first came out with A604/42LE/42TE transmissions they said that Mercon
could be used if ATF +3/ATF +4 was not available. Usage of Mercon
resulted in numerous tranny failures and Chrysler went back and said
that NOTHING but ATF +3/ ATF +4 could be used. I would not use
ANYTHING in this transmission except for Chrysler's original ATF +3/
ATF +4 fluids (check which one you have to use in this one -- probably
ATF +3 as it is an older car -- check your manual or dipstick)

Hope this helps,

Alex

 

Oh, another thing... you mentioned that the car does not switch to 3rd
and up... There is a "limp" mode on these cars whereby the vehicle is
limited to the first two gears -- the vehicle goes into that mode if
the TCU detects a fault that prevents it from operating transmission
normally. Are you getting any codes -- key on/off method should
display the fault codes. You can google the newsgroups to see how to
do it on your vehicle.

If the car is in limp mode it might be something as simple as input
speed sensor gone bad. Additionally, use of the improper fluid can
negatively impact solenoid packs -- you can see discussions of the
transmission issues on www.allpar.com

You might find the followin links useful:

http://www.allpar.com/fix/trans.html
http://www.allpar.com/fix/trans-testimonials.html

Thanks,

Alex

 

The van actually has little over 150k miles (255k km) however the
tranny was rebuilt about 5 years ago and It has below 60k miles (100k
km) after the rebuilt.