Any word on the outcome of your tranny woes from the dealership? My symptoms had gone away after I picked up the car from the dealership, but they seem to have returned...

Just got word from the dealership. No problem they can detect, can't detect any slippage. However the radio is blown out from the lightning hit and that will be $469. I can't believe they can't detect anything it'* so obviously shuddering.

That was the same response I got out of my dealership.

I wonder if the first thing that they do before they get in the car is reset the TCM... Do these cars have adaptive transmissions? My old Intrepid had an adaptive transmission and many problems could be quickly covered up by a TCM reset. By resetting the TCM, it would go back into quick learn mode for awhile and do things differently. Once it went back to normal operation, it would go back to it'* old ways again with bump stop and hard shifts. If this is the way that these trannies work, then the dealerships may never see the problem we are experiencing. The only way to get them to experience it would be to take the drive with them when you drop off the car.

Yah I agree. I'm not sure how they do the process that would be interesting to find out. On a side note I also had a dodge intrepid (it was a 94 though) I had horrible tranny problems that were all solved by putting the right type of fluid in it. Apparently the fluid that was in it from the factory was not mean for those trannys. Never had another tranny problem with it for as long as i kept it, 103,000 miles.

Keeping on that side note...
Mine was a 94 ES. Great car, paid for itself over time even with replacing the tranny and basically the entire A/C system. All told, I spent $9k on the car buying it and ALL repairs and put 73k on it. Sold it for $2200 with 167k miles on it. The only reason that the tranny went was because when I bought it with 94k I had all of the reciepts from the previous owner and none of them had a tranny flush/filter change. First thing I did was go to the local fast lube... Boy was that a mistake! The ONLY fluid you can run in those trannies is the Mopar ATF+3. Anything else will destroy them!

Back on subject, if I keep experiencing this shudder, I will make sure that I take a drive with the service manager when I drop the car off to have him experience it as well before anything else is done to the car. One issue is that the dealership I deal with doesn't have very many hilly roads around it... I'll have to go driving one of these days in the area around the dealership to 'find' the proper roads to take him on.

I just bought a 2000 Bonneville SSEi about a month ago with 55,000 miles. When I test drove it I didn't notice anything wrong with the car. About two days later I was driving to work and I was sitting at a light with a slight grade. When the light turned green I took off like normal and my tach went up but I barely moved. I immediatly let up and when the tach went back down the car shuddered like it was going into gear. It seemed like I was spinnig tires. It did not do it again until the next day at the same intersection. I knew something is wrong then. I then also noticed on the highway that it ran at aroun 2400 rpm and never shifted into 4th gear. I called the dealership that same day to let them know I was bringing it back. I was pissed because I had just bought it with no warranty and here I was with a bad transmission.

To make a long story short, they had my transmission out twice and ended up rebuilding it. The first time they had it out they replaced the valve body because it was sticking. That fixed the first gear problem but I still had no 4th gear. They took it out again and when they opened it up they found that there were no splines on the 4th gear. I was lucky and it did not cost me a dime because according to the Tech II the transmission set a code 100 miles before I bought it. (Lucky) Something the dealership should have caught. After a week in the shop and driving a POS car, I finally got the car back. I hope you don't have to go through the same thing because it sucks!! Other than this incident I love the car.

I would seriously suspect the lightening strike did something funny to the PCM or the TCM. It'* gotta be something electronic.

I have a 2001 SE Bonneville. I had the transmision replaced at 38,000 miles. I have 63,000 miles and my tranny is doing the same shudder thing that you all describe. I was thinking it was a cylinder misfiring. But now I wonder. I use only premium gas.