Hi everyone,

I have a 2001 Sebring Convertible 2.7 Liter engine with an Automatic transmission.

The other day my lower ball joint popped out on my front passenger tire luckily it happened right after turning out of a 4 way stop so i was only going about 15 MPH.

Anyways in addition to the tire going out and turning completely sideways in the wheel well, my driveshaft along with my outer CV joint were pulled apart and the Driveshaft pulled out of the transmission. I lost about 4 quarts of transmission fluid during this dilemma. Anyways long story short I have replaced the lower control arm and drive axle and filled the transmission fluid back up to the appropriate level.

Now to the problem, the transmission shifts perfectly normal when accelerating, however when I decelerate (coasting or pushing brake) the car jerks at around 30 MPH (appears to be going from 4th to 3rd). If I brake hard it does not happen as I am assuming it skips the intermediary gears, also if I put the car in neutral and slow down it is perfectly fine even when putting it back in gear going less than 25 MPH.

It seems to me like the transmission, for whatever reason, is downshifting too early or too late and thus causing the engine to have to correct it's RPM's to match the transmission rotation.

What can I do to look in to this issue further? I have tried puling the EATX fuse in hopes that it would reset the TCM, but no change. I have driven it about 150 miles and there has been no change in the problem.


Any help or ideas will be greatly appreciated!

 

What kind of fluid did you use to top off the transmission? If it was anything other than ATF +4 then that could be a problem.

The only other thing I would suggest is to see if there might be fault codes stored in the transmission control module. Sometimes rough shifts will generate fault codes and that might point you in the right direction toward fixing the problem. You'll need to have them read using a very good quality code reader. The usual run-of-the-mill reader won't be able to get that far into the system. Transmission shops should be able to get in there as will the dealer, but the dealer will probably charge you a hundred bucks for a diagnostic fee.
You could try the key dance method: (on-off-on-off-on within 5 seconds - don't start the car). If P0700 appears in the odometer space, it is telling you that fault codes are stored in the TCM. It won't tell you what they are, however.

 

Thanks for the reply.

Ya I used ATF+4 actually sane band iused about a year ago when I changed the fluid.

I did the key dance this morning and no codes were there, but I'll check again when I get home tonight.

Ya I try to avoid repair shops as much as possible and do it all myself I'll see if i can find someone with an advanced code reader.

If it helps anyone I have noticed that the jerk is harder the slower I slow down (coasting). Right now iI have just gotten in to the habit of shifting into neural if I am going to be slowing down to less than 30mph.

 

So I did the key dance and still no codes. So then I unhooked the battery for a day and still having the problem.

I also noticed it happens when I accelerate hard to pass someone, most likely shifting into 3rd from 4th here as well. Upshifting is still perfectly fine.

Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

 

Might want to consider replacing the solenoid pack. It's a fairly easy DIY project. Search for parts and how to's on the internet and here on the forum. It's conceivable that yanking out the half-shaft in that unceremonious fashion caused some dirt to get in there which found its way into the solenoid pack.