I've got a 92 Pontiac Bonneville with automatic transmission and 110,000 miles on it (1 owner—me). This spring, the car would have to warm up for a few minutes before I could move the car out of park, like it was locked in park.

With a change of transmission fluid (the $80 blow out kind—it was a medium brown color), the car would jerk when it shifted gears. The slamming/jerking stopped in about 2 weeks and handled normally. Then 3rd gear was almost gone, but I could get into 4th gear with some patience (the engine would rev but I would barely accelerate). I found a low engine speed was better at accelerating than flooring it, not hat we drive it much.

Recently the car has three "modes": (1) Cold start all gears present with jerking, sometimes goes into mode 3 after a few miles, sometimes not; (2) Normal; (3) 3rd gear almost gone with engine revving; doesn't go into the other "modes".

During the August 2003 blackout waiting in massive traffic, it died 3 times, but was resurrected after waiting a few minutes (who knows why — someone suggested the transmission caused the engine to die from overworking it). Now that it'* cooler, the engine temp seems to rise faster than it used it, thought not entirely sure.

I searched the forums (one guy had a jerking symptom due to a torque converter) but I suspect it'* the tranmission, and would like to get the transmission fixed, but should I get it rebuilt or get a new (or remanufactured) transmission (and how much should each cost)? Or am I really far off?

Sounds like you have a big bad trans problem. Judgeing by the color of the fluid that came out of your tras I would say its pretty gone by the description of the shifting. I would buy a remanufactured trans and plop it in there...Im not sure about you but this might be a job for someone else. :?

I suggest personally I would get a remanufactured one and put it in the car. I just replaced mine about a month ago in my 95 SE and have had no problems. The tranny cost $400 and was no problem changing out.