I turned on to one of my favorite roads the other day and slipped the shift lever into the SS gate. With the stereo up I gave her some gas. I had this car for almost 2 years so I can drive by feel pretty well. I went to shift into third and did not feel a thing. I turned the radio down and let off the gas to hear my engine winding down from about 6k rpm. I tried again to shift to third but nothing happened. I put the lever back into D5, but still I did not feel it shift, to make sure I went back to SS once again and looked at the instrument panel to see that big fat red 2 looking back at me. One more failed attempt to up shift manually and back into D5 she went coasting down the slight decline of a road I was on the car finally shifted while in D5. Not a single problem since. All this happened over a period of about 20 seconds. Any ideas why the tranny would get stuck in second? Is this the frequently feared but seldom realized (thankfully) Tranny failure? Or at least an early indication? Please advise.

Some other info that might help:
2002 TL-S
25000 miles
I use the SS mode about 5% of the time
I don’t drive to hard but I step on it occasionally.
Only hit the rev lim three or four times
I am the original owner
I did receive the notification through the mail regarding the ext warranty

Any help or comments would be greatly appreciated.

 

it may be, take it to the dealer. it has the symptoms though.

 

Sounds like a problem to me. I am going through the same thing now, my tranny harddown shifted from 4 to 1 at about 30mph, felt like i dropped and anchor out the back. This lasted only about 10 secs but my shift indicator light went out and came back on. Trans does not seem right. Car is at the dealer's now. Initially they couldn't find a problem (no codes) but the are still checking. My problem is that my 2000 TL has 99,900 mis

 

i thought you were not suppose to shift between SS and D5 while in motion... am I wrong?

 

No, you are able to shift btwn D5 and SS on the fly or at full stop.
J

 

You can toggle between SS and D5 at anytime


I just got my tranny replaced, I don't know about your dealer, but they gave me a rental, paid for it, and gave me my car the next day with new tranny installed, at no cost on my part:wow:

It really depends, because the service manager has to agree that it's slipping, too

 

well this was only the first indication that anything was wrong, hopefully either nothing will ever happen again or the tranny wil go completely and I'll get it replaced.