this just started today, out of the blue...

backed out the driveway, put er in gear....at about 15 mph it dropped into 2nd gear, and then 1 sec later a loud clunk, almost as a downshift happen. then almost all the way through 2nd gear it was really shakey...the feeling of going over stopp sign warning bumbs in the road. once it drops into 3rd and overdrive, its all good. also noticed that first gear, can also get shakey, but only when going REALLY slow. after slowing down from 60+ mph, up to a stop sign or something, the 2nd gear shakeyness comes back, at about 20 mph. the fluid is fine. dad said it was ok to drive to mankato, 60 miles, but just watch it. i have been downshifting a lot in mankato to save my brakes, could this be affecting it? its really scaring me

I don't know why but these cars hate to be shifted manually.

Don't downshift to save your brakes. Only does anything on real big hills, and only should be done on manual cars on a regular basis.

No automatic should be "shifted manually". You can't shift better then the PCM calls for.

Could be something like a solenoid? Cheap but hard to get at.

so what do i do to fix this?

Downshifting to save your brakes is false economy because fixing your transmission is far more costly.
I agree with BonneMeMN.

You should take it to a transmission shop and have them test drive it to diagnose.
...one that is trustworthy.

Hopefully it'* just a solenoid that won't cost more than a thousand to replace.
Much better than a $5000 rebuild.

is it ok to keep driving?

my dad can find a used tranny way cheaper than that

Its a hard call weather or not to keep driving it, Look at Bill'* auto trans for example...its absolutely on deaths bed, still drives it as far as i know, but its reliablilty factor is really low lol. Almost sounds to me like yours is slipping....is the fluid black/burnt, if so I'd suspect clutch packs..on the other hand..could be the valve body as well..its really hard to tell with an autoo, this is why it should be taken to a reputable tranny shop.

fluid is red as ever...

Is it possible that there is a clog in the system, and fluid isn't flowing [or isn't flowing 100%] to some areas of the transmission, thus causing the clunk, and the slipping and such? When was the last flush? May not be a bad idea to get it professionally flushed [where the fluid is pressurized] and see if that helps. Other than that, it'* got me.


-justin

thanks for the idea...i will have my dad flush it asap