'96 Cutlass 2d - tranny..
 

Well, the wife's car started slipping in first. The rest of the gears work fine.

I drove it and when in drive, taking off from a stop feels just like a torque converter slipping (all the way through 1st). Once into 2nd, all is fine.

So I drop it down into 1st at the next light and go through the gears manually. No problems every time I do that.

However, for two days afterward, my wife said she's left it in drive and it's been shifting fine. Then yesterday she tells me it's back to its 1st gear trick.

Trashed tranny? Or is there something I can check prior to deciding to trade-in/sell/get rid of the car. Thanks

EDIT> I should add that there are no codes, and although the stick reads a bit overfull, the fluid looks good and isn't burnt.

its been my experience that if drive it a few times with it slipping regardless of why you end up replacing the clutches in it, the slipping accelerates the wear on clutches that already have some wear. its not worth saving if you have to get it rebuilt?

Truth is, I'm a guy who likes the 'older' cars, and would do most anything to maintain them. But, I don't care much for messing with tranny shops, who don't seem to get much right the first time. Plus, I truly don't want to put over a grand in a car not worth much more.

That being said, it's perplexing that the tranny works perfectly when shifting manually, but in drive, first gear intermittently screws up.

But then, I've always been on the mechanics' "unique problem" list. :confused:

i dont know anything about autos except were i have taken mine to get rebuilt. you need to know what you are looking at to know whats good and bad. i rebuilt the one in my firebird and screwed it up so technically i have done it twice, lol. but i have had the ones in my past w-bodies and my bonnie(same trans) go, one each per car. and i took them to volume shops. all were less than 1000, all did so many of those they had cores ready to go and took a couple days to do and i never had to take one back. only bitch i ever had was this last time the grimy tech got a bunch of crud in the driver side carpet