yesterday when taking off for work i startedmy car and my rpm shot up to about 1500, my vsa light stood on as well as the yellow exclamation and my check engine light, so i decided to leave anyways since i was running late, and the damn transmission wouldnt shift!!! my heart dropped, so i had to use the slap shift to get it to shift, after driving for a few it started to shift on its own but very stiff, finally i stopped at a light and shut the car off and restarted it, the vsa lights went away but my check engine light stood on and my car was still idling real low (500rpm's) but it shifted fine now. well after i got out of work and started my car and only the check engine light was on and everything else was perfect, shifted right and idling great, but i took it to autozone anyways and it read a throttle position sensor fault on their diagnostic test. now ive been doing some searches on here and i have only seen one person with a similar problem who said that they ordered the throttle position sensor but never updated to wetheror not it fixed his problem, also i saw someone debating wether it could still possibly be an idle air control valve which i doubt because i had a 99 mustang that had a bad IAC valve and the symptoms were totally different the idle was all over the place and on my cl the idle is steady just very low and my vsa lights came on, even after the guy at autozone cleared the fault today it was fine in the morning going to work but after work a couple minutes after starting the car while i was still sitting in the parking lot my rpms dropped to 500 and my vsa lights came on and check engine light did too, so sorry for the super long story but has anyone ever had or heard of a problem on their cl like mine and what fixed it?? thnx in advance for the replies.

 

Sounds like a tranny taking a dump.

 

Transmission Is About To Die

 

tranny. Take it to the dealer ASAP. The last thing you need is for it to slip into 2nd while you're doing 70 mph.

 

I had the same exact problem last weekend. Took my car in this morning to have it fixed. This is their technician note:
"PO122 7p Sensor Voltage Low. Cleared code & test drove. Throttle Closed .49V. Throttle wide open 4.50v. TP Sensor is within parameters intermittent failure. VSA light on related to PO122 code"

Initially i thought i am on way to my 4th transmission. Dealer mechanic said theres nothign wrong with the transmission; but rather a problem with "throttle position sensor" as you stated here. He said the transmission wasn't feeling right b/c it's in 'fail-safe' mode so that it wouldn't get damaged while the TP Sensor is experiencing the wrong voltage. He couldn't tell me why it happened. He just cleared the code, ran volt. test i guess. Car seems to be driving fine now. Tho i am still wary. Maybe time to sell while i still got 20k left on warranty. (2001 model, 80k miles)