Do you lose a gear at a time? Can you hit something in the road and cause you to lose one?

 

Did you go back and look to see if you left a gear laying in the street?
Seriously though, what is it doing? What gear got "lost"? And this is an automatic I presume?

 

I dont know about "losing" the tranny but I lost my mind lol. This is actually on the 90 RS and not mine so dont know why I asked over here but still applies to any of our cars. and yeah, automatic. The car is doing its misbehaving in OD. My son just text me (he refused to drive any other car to his 45 min school) and said in drive it is normal. It sounds or feels like it's dragging something on the ground back near the rear of the car while you're driving it in OD but it doesn't do it in drive. None of this happened until he went over some water in the road during a torrential down pour yesterday.

 

To answer your first question a automatic transmission has several internal systems. Some systems are used by all gears, some may be used by two gears or more and some by only one gear. So depending on what system has the issue a failure can affect one, two or all the gears.

The car being sluggish in Overdrive can be a transmission issue but I would think you would see a rise in RPMs. When the overdrive go out like this it is pretty easy to tell they are slipping. Without the complaint of slipping I would suspect that either something was holding the car back (like a brake part was causing a drag) and the reason the overdrive feels sluggish is because the 305 does not have a lot of torque and 3rd gears higher RPM will feel the effects of the drag a lot less than the OD. Also anything that would reduce the power of the engine would cause the car to feel sluggish in OD. I have had a couple of people bring in cars they thought they had transmission issues but it ended up being a bad catalytic converter.

 

The tach doesn't work so can't tell u about rpm climbing but I don't feel it either so id say they aren't. Car doesn't have a cat either. Could be on to something about brakes though. He will be home next 3 days so maybe they can get it on jacks and see what's in there.

 

Maybe the trans isn't downshifting out of 4th when it's supposed to? What speed is he going while in 4th (OD)? I don't even shift my trans into OD unless I'm going 45 mph or better. Much slower than that in 4th and the engine is getting bogged down.

 

He wouldn't have been going much over 45 yesterday. I was riding with him back home and we never got in a zone more than 45. He's always drove in OD. Don't know why. I'm trying to think what I drive mine in. Its the first one after neutral. I've never looked lol. Kid should be on his way home now. We'll see how trip home goes.

 

First gear after neutral is 4th. Some people like to just drop it in 4th and go, I don't. Driving around town in 4th is annoying to me, with the trans doing its gear hunting up and down. Not to mention the rpm's are well below the engine's optimum power band, which will cause it to lag. I like to have it in 3rd for around town/slower rural roads, then pop it into 4th when on the highway.

 

Well I wouldnt be doing that if I didnt know any better lol. I've just always done that. I'd have to see if it has OD though. My tranny isn't original and who knows with this car. Of course I can't go by the shifter label though in case it isn't

 

Updating. First thank you to "camaro 69" for getting me out of OD. I like the way the car feels in DRIVE lol.

On the other car, he drives in DRIVE and car drives smooth and normal. However, today he noticed PARK doesn't hold the car. Good thing he figured it out while in it. It rolls back and the the e-brake is holding it. So now are we losing the tranny??