Late last night, my transmission without warning started slipping, and driving like it was a couple gears too high. I managed to limp home reasonably well. I had been driving all day without issues.

I went to start it today, and it started with a quiet bang. Reverse is great, but the shift into drive took a couple seconds. I got up my driveway in manual first, and sat watching traffic, but when I went to go, the car just started rolling backwards and stalled. It restarted with a whimper, and I quickly drove it back into my parking spot.

The engine sounds normal. But when I put it in gear, it starts to make this awful noise, that I can't really describe (sounds like a mix of screaming, crying, and a bad supercharger) that persists until I turn the engine off, even if I take it out of gear.

No codes, but the shifter light was blinking at me last night like it was trying to tell me something. The fluid looks like new (because it is), but it was WAY overfilled, but maybe that'* normal because I checked it cold.

I accept that it'* dead. It'* served me well these eight years. However, I'm just trying to determine the cause of death. What I do next — fix or part-out — depends on what the used car market can offer me.

It'* a remote chance it could be your trans pump starving for fluid because of a blocked filter. How old is the filter?

If you can, drop the pan, (save the oil the best you can) and pull the filter out and open it up. Hopefully you won't have any metal in the pan or filter.

My landlord would have a fit if I opened my transmission pan here, so unfortunately, that'* not happening.

Bill and I changed the fluid, filter, and transmission cooler lines about a month ago. For what it'* worth, we didn't find any metal in the pan then, just a little bit of soft clutch material on the magnet.

Aside from that, I'm not sure what other advice I could give you. You could try and PM Bill, and considering how close he is to you, he might be able to give you a hand.

I guess the real question now is do I pay to get it fixed, or should I sell it to some happy mechanic?

Arguments for keeping it: zero rust, clean interior, modded engine, slightly tuned, four new tires, new battery, new-ish tensioner, just paid for a new registration and emissions test, decent bucket of spare parts, and I know the vehicle'* history inside and out.

Arguments for junking it: can't drive it to Bill'* (practically unmovable), would need to find and get a transmission, fuel pump is getting tired, A/C doesn't work, UIM sipping coolant.

dont feel bad my trans just died earlier this month

I discussed finances with a couple people, and I've decided that unless a transmission replacement is too expensive, the Bonnie shall ride again! (Tough decision to make. If the registration wasn't just renewed, and the tires weren't brand new, I'd probably consider sending it off to the For Sale section.)

I've been doing a little research, and based on the whining/crying I'm hearing from the flywheel area and my recent history of P1870 codes, I'm guessing this is either a torque converter failure, or the common 4T60 valve body/TCC bore failure. There'* not much I can do, but I'd like to be an educated customer when I call transmission shops.

It'* unlikely that I'm going to fix it (especially since a nice GP just appeared for sale in the next town over), but if anyone can at least take a guess on the cause of death, I'm curious as to what finally did it in.

My uneducated guess is that the transmission pump went out, or the torque converter exploded and clogged my brand-new filter.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IR97Sqyy3c[/yt]

I didn't bother driving it, but that noise you hear right after starting comes back as the transmission warms up.

I have a video SOMEWHERE around here that sounds exactly like the sound in yours. Any chance you could pop the hood, set the camera up on the drivers side strut tower, start recording and start it up cold?

I'll see if I can get you that video tomorrow, but here'* what my friend had to say after I explained that problem:

(I've got to get him on the forum. This was all off the top of his head.)