OK so here's the deal. It's a 2000 elantra 4door wagon automatic. Has 1st gear, will rev to about 3000 and shift very hard into 2nd and will not shift into any other gears. After about 5 mins of driving i lose 2nd and have nothing but 1st gear. Also has no reverse no matter what. I checked the fluid and its very dark but it is full. 112k miles and it has never been done im sure of that. I did a pan service tonight an it didnt help.

Here's what i have found so far.

OK so i pulled the pan and its very clean inside. Fluid was pretty dark but i found very little material on the magnets and no chunks at all. I dont have a CEL either which is making this harder. I did replace the filter and 4.5 quarts of fluid. Here's what happens

Park to reverse, nothing
Park to drive i get first, hard and late into 2nd, and thats it no more shifting. I let off the gas come to a stop and it will start out in 2nd gear and stay there.

If i go back to park and into drive again it wont leave first gear.

Shut it off start it again and i get first and 2nd and it goes though the same sequence. Seems shutting it down and re starting it resets something and allows 1st and 2nd but nothing more and still never reverse.

After doing some reading here i cleaned my battery terminals, and ran a new 10g ground wire from the battery to the transmission case. Didnt help me but im sure it didnt hurt.

I know long thread im sorry but id really like to salvage this car. Its in great shape other than this. Any ideas at all guys?

 

You need a transmission! Reverse is a manual gear and has nothing to do with the electronic side of things. So if there is no reverse then you have an internal trans problem. Start checking the junk yards. Just to test you can unplug the harness that goes to the trans next to the dipstick tube. Then drive it, reverse should work and in drive it should hold in third gear.

Jasen

 

So if i unplug that harness that has 6 wires going into it, i should get reverse back and it should start in 3rd gear and hold there?

Do you happen to know the part number for my transmission and where its located on the case? I believe it's the F4A32 or the A4BF2 but im not sure?. Also what years and models can i pull a transmission from?

Thank you

 

OK so new info here. How is it possible that when i unplug the main 6 pin harness going to the transmission, nothing changes? That harness feeds the 6 solenoids on the valve body. How is it possible that the transmission acts the same way with that unplugged? Im leaning towards a bad TCM

 

I had a somewhat related issue on my '02 Accent in the past. It was an automatic, and the car would just randomly slip out of 4th gear down to 3rd. I was on the highway going pretty fast, and this happened, and I was pretty alarmed. I took it in, and they told me it was the "pulse emitter" which they replaced for free since it was under warranty. I remember that so vividly because of the star wars sounding name for the part they fixed.

 

Very different problem. Car isnt worth the time or money so is being parted ut.

 

Did you ever get this problem fixed? I have the exact same problem and I'm trying to decide if I should spend the money fixing it or if I should just junk it and get another. I have been driving this car for a while and I'm hoping this is not the end for it. I don't work on cars but my husband does. He attempted to fix the solenoid and could not replace it. It was a different part inside, didn't look the same. Car wont got backwards whatsoever. same shifting problems. we tried draining and changing fluid. We've replaced a lot of other parts on it but we're just not sure. We're leaning towards having to purchase a new transmission