I've never had problems with my transmission slipping, however only sign i had was in the first 30 seconds after starting i could hit the gas and it wouldn't do anything for a second but then jerk forward and then work great the rest of the trip. I woke up yesterday and started it up, let it warm up inside before taking my kids to school and to find it not going into Drive. I didn't find out until after i backed out of my driveway that it wouldn't go into drive, it wouldn't go into 3rd drive but the lower gears worked. I quickly found out that i could shift it into drive as if i was using it as a stick shift.

I started being an internet mechanic right away and saw that replacing the pressure control solenoid is a pretty common problem right around 100k. So i thought to myself awesome, only a 400-500 dollar fix and i can be driving in it tomorrow afternoon again. I take it to a transmission shop (my biggest mistake i believe) and they told me to leave it because they couldn't even diagnose it for 4-5 hours because of how backed up they was. So I left it and started walking home, (20 minute walk) and half way home i get a call from the shop, " oh hey your transmission is completely dead, and need a rebuild and we need 2k + tax". This sounds extremely shady to me, they told me they didn't even get Solenoid error codes and wouldn't go into details of what codes they got other than it was dead.

I know it needs a 2nd opinion, but this seems far fetch that a transmission would just go completely dead overnight.

 

$ 2000 dollars for a rebuid sounds too cheap to believe. Yeah they sound VERY shady. Probably a shift solenoid gone bad.

 

Another shop told me that it could just be the pressure plate since i can still get the car into drive while upshifting(its gotten 20 degrees colder within the past 3 days), another shop quoted me 1895 for a rebuild, i just think its the area i live in fighting over business .

 

QUOTE=clm911978;365726Another shop told me that it could just be the pressure plate since i can still get the car into drive while upshifting(its gotten 20 degrees colder within the past 3 days), another shop quoted me 1895 for a rebuild, i just think its the area i live in fighting over business .[/QUOTE]

Probably meant the drive plate. Pressure plates are for the clutch in a stickshift. Automatics use a flex plate to start the vehicle with the starter.

 

How long have you owned the van and how many miles are on it?
Did you change the transmission fluid in the past?

 

Its about to hit 94k, i've had it for about 4 years. i got it at 68k and far as i was told it had a transmission fluid flush before bought it. Edit: carfax shows it was flushed at 48k

 

op what did you end up doing?
fwiw, occasionally mine has trouble finding D when i pull the lever.
recently it stayed in N despite the dash saying D.. as you did, i moved it to 1 and rolled it down the street.. stopped, put it back to P, then it found D again. hasnt done it since.
oddly it happened mid november which i believe was right around the first cold weather here.

 

Same here

 

Prob a broken forward band very common drop pan you can see the end of the band look for a broken peice in the pan or check it for looseness. My inner band separated from the outer could easily tell by feel from the access after removing the pan. If that’s the case very difficult to fix, it’s the last peice in the transmission pretty much everything has to be removed can be done in place if you drop that side of the engine cradle