beagle77

Has anyone else had problems with their transmissions when first starting the car when cold? Twice in one week I put the car in gear, step on the gas and the car creeps along with the engine racing. The tires were not slipping it was almost as if I was feathering the clutch to get a good launch at high rpms. Of course it being an auto this was not the case. I drove it around the driveway for about five minutes, and the problem never fixed itself. The first time I was moving the car into the garage as it was supposed to snow and wanted to get it out of the driveway. It seemed to have the problem in both drive and reverse. The next morning the car seemed fine. The second time, about a week later I was on the way to the airport same problem putting the car in sport mode I was able to manual shift between the gears to get it to start working normal. Drove 100mile to the airport left it there for 3 weeks and it seems fine since I got home yesterday. I am brining it in for service on Saturday. I live in NH and the dealer is near Boston so its a haul to go back and forth, anyone have any ideas on what they will do to fix it? My guess is the fluid might be low but since I don't see any leaking and their is no way to check adding fluid is not an acceptable solution unless they can figure out how it became low in the first place. They are also going to do the pedal rework while I am there. I like my car but don't feel safe letting my wife drive it anymore.

MD350

I have been on this forum for over 3 years and never heard of this on any other owner's car. I would take it in to the dealer to be checked out.

NJLEXES

I think I have an idea what the problem might be.

My original tranny failed at 19k miles.

After it was replaced, I had a similar problem in the cold weather.
You would be pulling away from a stop with a cold car and the engine would be revving wildly, but you would only be creeping forward 2-3 mph. It would be like you were slipping on ice but the tires weren't spinning.

The solution: The dealer needs to make an electronic adjustment to the "transmission compensation value"

Ever since they did that, problem never appeared again and it is 25k miles later.

Sounds like this should be the fix for you.

Good luck.

beagle77

Did you have this problem right away after the transmission issue? I haven't had any work done so while the problem sounds exactly the same its strange that this value could have been corrupted somehow. I am bringing it in on Thursday evening now so they can keep it a couple of days because they also have no idea what could be the cause of the problem.

NJLEXES

Yes, this was right after getting the car back with the replacement transmission in the very cold weather right after startup in the morning.
I would have to let off the gas totally and then accelerate again to get it to engage the tranny to properly accelerate.

As I said, the problem has never reappeared since they adjusted this "compensation value".

If your dealer has no idea, you might want to mention this to them as a possible place to look. It may not actually be "corrupted", but it might just need to be tweaked.

Good luck