Trouble shifting into drive and reverse - Toyota Nation Forum : Toyota Car and Truck Forums

letseatpaste · 04-23-2008, 04:44 PM

I have a 95 Camry, 4cyl 2.2. In the morning when I get in to go to work, sometimes the car hesitates when I shift into reverse or drive, it's almost like I'm still in neutral. I've found that a very gentle press on the gas pedal will make it slip into gear when the RPMs come back down to idling speed. It almost never does it later in the day, it's usually after the car has been sitting at least overnight. After I get going, it works great, no rough shifting or anything like that.

I had the transmission serviced (I'm assuming that just means the fluid was changed, maybe flushed) about 15k ago, though the car sat unused for a number of months between then and now (had to wait a couple months for warm enough weather when I could replace a bad master cylinder).

My uneducated guess is that old fluid is making a solenoid stick or something along those lines. I'm planning on doing a drain and refill soon and hopefully that will fix it. Then from searching around on this forum made me wonder if it was something like a shift cable that needed to be replaced or something.

What do you think?

Idrum88 · 04-24-2008, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by letseatpaste

I have a 95 Camry, 4cyl 2.2. In the morning when I get in to go to work, sometimes the car hesitates when I shift into reverse or drive, it's almost like I'm still in neutral. I've found that a very gentle press on the gas pedal will make it slip into gear when the RPMs come back down to idling speed. It almost never does it later in the day, it's usually after the car has been sitting at least overnight. After I get going, it works great, no rough shifting or anything like that.

I had the transmission serviced (I'm assuming that just means the fluid was changed, maybe flushed) about 15k ago, though the car sat unused for a number of months between then and now (had to wait a couple months for warm enough weather when I could replace a bad master cylinder).

My uneducated guess is that old fluid is making a solenoid stick or something along those lines. I'm planning on doing a drain and refill soon and hopefully that will fix it. Then from searching around on this forum made me wonder if it was something like a shift cable that needed to be replaced or something.

What do you think?

i got the same problem too i need some answers

jkconnections · 07-07-2008, 10:29 AM

Did either of you find out anything? My 1997 camry does this too. I had Toyota do a drain and fill on the tranny fluid a year ago b/c it looked like the previous owner either never did it or it had been quite a while.

One other thing I notice is that when I manually downshift (by turning off overdrive, then shifting into 2nd gear -- on my auto transmission) to shorten my stopping distance, I get lurched forward when the transmission actually downshifts. My mom has a 98 camry and hers downshifts much more smoothly than mine, so I'm wondering if the tranny is going.

Any thoughts anyone?

uuuuu · 07-07-2008, 07:39 PM

I am by no means an expert on this, but maybe the cable from the gear shifter to the transmission is loose? Then again, I'm not sure how the temp of the car would affect that...

nikita · 07-10-2008, 10:14 AM

Classic automatic transmission "morning sickness". When the oil pump, servo seals and other parts are worn out, it takes a while to build enough oil pressure to get clutch packs to engage. At this point, usually changing and flushing fluids wont fix it. The reason it works ok later in the day is that parts are warmer and expanded a bit and seals a little softer. It is not likely that the transmission will suddenly die and leave you stranded, but you do need to start saving up for a rebuild. I've seen them take 30 seconds to engage reverse in the morning, but otherwise still function.

jkconnections · 07-10-2008, 10:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nikita

Classic automatic transmission "morning sickness". When the oil pump, servo seals and other parts are worn out, it takes a while to build enough oil pressure to get clutch packs to engage. At this point, usually changing and flushing fluids wont fix it. The reason it works ok later in the day is that parts are warmer and expanded a bit and seals a little softer. It is not likely that the transmission will suddenly die and leave you stranded, but you do need to start saving up for a rebuild. I've seen them take 30 seconds to engage reverse in the morning, but otherwise still function.

Thanks for this post. Let me ask you this, yesterday I started up the car, zipped backwards out of my parking spot, put the car into drive, waited until I felt the car shift into drive and then I pushed on the gas to get the rpms up to about 2000. The car began to move foward but only felt like I was getting about 25% of that power to the transmission. 1 full second later, the car lurched and then took off at full power -- all the while I was holding the gas pedal steady at about 1800-2000 rpm.

Does this still sound like the problem you described above?

Twix · 07-10-2008, 04:20 PM

To me as well sounds like the seal in gearbox....I think it's orange color sticking out of the gearbox body (on the side going towards torque converter, in the center)....I already replaced my whole gearbox with refurbished one so I saw it upside down

As you take the torque converter out, it's stays in the body of gearbox in the hole from where the t.c. came out...

Hope I explained OK

jkconnections · 07-10-2008, 04:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Twix

To me as well sounds like the seal in gearbox....I think it's orange color sticking out of the gearbox body (on the side going towards torque converter, in the center)....I already replaced my whole gearbox with refurbished one so I saw it upside down

As you take the torque converter out, it's stays in the body of gearbox in the hole from where the t.c. came out...

Hope I explained OK

So to fix that am I looking at a rebuild? Or what kind of cost if I have a garage do it? (I'm not too handy on cars)

Twix · 07-11-2008, 02:12 AM

The cost is a cost of the seal...here (when I transfer in US$) that seal is ~ $23
Of course once you are changing seals you should change transmission fluid (oil) as well....

You should do it the sooner the better cause of the transmission fluid (oil) pump, cause there is no pressure that it needs to have in that time since you place it in D and until it actually starts going...

To replace that seal you need to take the engine out, and then to take out the gearbox and torque converter...when you remove torque converter you will see that seal (it is about ~4cm in diameter in the center of gearbox where torque converter is getting in)...

Try looking on this forum for some pictures if someone already did it...
And you can check here for more about automatic gearbox (useful to read) : http://www.familycar.com/transmission.htm

jkconnections · 07-11-2008, 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Twix

To replace that seal you need to take the engine out, and then to take out the gearbox and torque converter...when you remove torque converter you will see that seal (it is about ~4cm in diameter in the center of gearbox where torque converter is getting in)...

Try looking on this forum for some pictures if someone already did it...
And you can check here for more about automatic gearbox (useful to read) : http://www.familycar.com/transmission.htm

So how many hours would you estimate it to take to do this repair? I'm not a mechanic so I would need to pay someone by the hour to do this and I need to figure out an estimated cost.

Thanks!

Twix · 07-11-2008, 03:14 PM

It is quite a big job...

My time estimation maybe wrong...

Maybe around 12-15h all in total (engine out, transmission out, changing seal will take couple min. compared to the rest, engine in, transmission in...only to take the engine out quite a few things must be removed......don't know all the English words for those things

)

P.S.Once everything is out, check for all the seals that you can see and change them...My Toyota service did that when everything was out....it think there is couple more seals, but I don't know which one are those exactly...I know only that they are not expensive, maybe $10-$15...

nikita · 07-14-2008, 11:09 AM

Once you have torn the car that far apart, I would not just replace one seal, but the next logical step would be to disassemble the entire transmission an replace all "soft parts", clutch plates, servo seals, etc. Really, a traditional overhaul. I know that if you dont do the work yourself this is costly, unless you find the right shop. A transmission exchange may be more cost-effective.

jkconnections · 07-14-2008, 11:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nikita

Once you have torn the car that far apart, I would not just replace one seal, but the next logical step would be to disassemble the entire transmission an replace all "soft parts", clutch plates, servo seals, etc. Really, a traditional overhaul. I know that if you dont do the work yourself this is costly, unless you find the right shop. A transmission exchange may be more cost-effective.

Considering that, wouldn't I just be better off waiting for the transmission to fail before doing anything? If I let the car warm up for 10 seconds and give the tranny a second before giving it gas after shifting into drive, I don't notice the problem. So that seems like an awful lot of money to spend when the car still drives fine. (you're right I won't be doing this myself)

Am I missing something?