I have a 2004 Sebring Platinum Limited Coupe with the 3.0. The other morning I was entering McDonald's at about 10 mph and it seemed to pop out of gear and I coasted in. It will not go into any gear. I checked the cable and it works fine. I also checked the AT relay and fuse and those are fine as well. I checked the PNP switches and they both get power.

Any help is greatly appreciated. I'm thinking of going tomorrow to a upick junk yard to look for the input / output sensors, the solenoid and the TCM. I figure one of these should clear it up. Any other suggestions? I REALLY need to get running tomorrow

 

Check the fluid. Level and quality. If you don't know the maintenance history, change it and the filter. Use only the type of fluid recommended in the owners manual. Do that before throwing parts at it.

 

Do I need to drop the pan to change the fluid?

thanks for your help

 

BTW, the level seems fine and the fluid is red. I do think that I did fill it about a month ago with fluids that was not ATF+4. Didn't know I had the wrong one. Would this cause the symptoms I'm experiencing?

thank again

 

It might. A transmission is designed around the fluid. The slip characteristics of the fluid are very important. People with older transmissions sometimes have the impression that ATF +4 fluid is "better" and use it in a transmission designed for an older design of fluid with disappointing results. Unfortunately, it's quite difficult to get all the fluid out of the transmission. Dropping the pan only gets out about 40% of what's in there. Search the web for methods to more completely drain the transmission.

Another point. Your coupe was built by Mitsubishi, although I think the transmission was built by Chrysler. If you swap out the computer, make sure the part number is the same.

 

Thanks for the help. I've found a couple of sites with directions that seem helpful.

I have the part number for my TCM and will make sure to get one like it. Is there any programming involved or it does it on its own?

thanks for the help

 

I don't know about the trans computer. Try the other (cheaper) stuff first before you invest in the big bucks. There are computer exchange services on the web that will give you a guaranteed result as opposed to a junkyard crapshoot.

 

Changed the 2 speed sensors and still not going into gear.

 

Fluid and solenoid pack would be next. Keep in mind that if you're using junkyard components, you may be putting bad parts in there to replace bad parts. You just don't know. Before you replace the computer, you should have it read for error codes using a sophisticated code reader. There may be codes stored that will guide your repair process. Replacing the computer before scanning it could lose valuable information. The usual parts store scanner may not be able to drill that deep into the system to get the codes.