Can you help me with my 2000 Dodge Durango?

OK DH just told me what they bought was a rebuild kit for about $1100
The oil they put down just says ATF
I do not have the receipt in front of me but this is what my hubby just told me if it helps.
I wonder if we can have the new folks figure out what type of oil was used...

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2Ti 1:7 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
Luceo non uro

There are companies that do oil and fluid analysis, if you were ever that motivated to find out.

Here is just a shot in the dark. This is coming from my experince with the great E4OD in a 91 ford with a diesel. Junk the tranny you have and get another one. The time and expense it will take to find the issue that is causeing the the low pressure in yours will be high. Slippage in a auto trans causes heat. Thus in turn cooks parts. It could be many things wrong with yours. But, konwing a very good dodge trans guy is. If the shop replaced the torgue convertor what did they replace it with. What you listed for the cost of a rebuild kit sounds like it did not cover the convertor. That could be the reason the rebuild felt and acted the same as the first time it failed. Dodge did have a issue with them. It takes a very good aftermarket convert to stand up in them. Also the trans body itself could be warped from being over heated the first tiem and now is letting pressure to escape and causes the slippage.
What motor do you have in your?


I could give you a my opinion of where the durango needs to go but I am being biased due to only running a dakota for a year and paying dear for that year.
Bob

If you put standard ATF in a tranny that calls for ATF+4 it will break, ask me how I know. If the shop put the wrong fluid in they are responsible for the damages it causes.

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I think I can, I think I can, I think I can, with your help I KNOW I can.

Ok talked to 3rd party today
they said
slipshod work in rebuilding
bad parts/ cheapest possible
shoddy oil

they also said that while the oil is bad enough that is not the big issue. They are tearing it down now to find the issue.

Then we will see just how good this warranty is because the other shop needs to cover the cost of fixing their mistakes.

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2Ti 1:7 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
Luceo non uro

You're sinking deeper into the pit. If that is actually what 3rd. shop said I don't think you're any better off. I need to meet the guy that can look at used trans fluid and tell it's bad oil, also internal trans parts and see they're cheap parts. Run Forrest,run!!!

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"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self confidence"
Robert Frost

Beeman I wish I could.

It seems that now the truck will not even shift properly. When they called my husband to tell him they wanted to take it apart again, they said the estimate was between $600 and $800 to handle it. That is just to tell us what the other shop did or did not do that made it still not work.

This is from a Firestone, national shop. The original shop for the trans was a local one with an excellent reputation.

What irks me is that apparently after being told not to drive it, they drove it to another trans shop where the bad work/parts evaluation was made... We did not take it to that shop because most of the people we trust said that shop can not be trusted. So it seems no matter what we are doomed. All I know for certain is I need my truck back.

Personally I am thinking call the first shop and tell them what is going on and give them the chance to redo it again, before this new shop does something that may void the warranty but hubby is adamant he does not want them to touch it again.

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2Ti 1:7 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
Luceo non uro

So now there are three shops involved in this transmission mess?

Shop A, which did the original work. The supposedly good shop. That actually rebuilt the transmission on site, and may have used bad parts and performed shoddy work.

Shop B, which appears to be a Firestone store. Who did nothing but send the truck to shop C.

Shop C, supposedly a bad shop. You avoided this shop initially because of their reputation. This shop diagnosed that Shop A used bad parts and performed shoddy work.

Do I have this right?

One could ask why you would take a truck with transmission problems to a Firestone store.

Has anyone talked to shop A about the current transmission situation yet? If you want warranty work done by shop A, they need to have the right to perform the warranty.

I can well understand your husbands ire towards shop A. But if you do not let them honor the warranty, you will be paying the bills for the latest transmission rebuild/replacement. If that is your decision, so be it.

Are you sure you didn't get the two transmission shops confused initially? Sounds like you went to a low end shop initially, and a better shop well recognizes their work.

Beeman, I can look at ATF and tell you its bad in less than a second. When it's that muddy water color, and stinks for example. And I can tell at a glance if the job has been done by hammer mechanics. The globs of permatex everywhere and the missing bolts and masking tape splices. It ain't hard to recognize bad work done by bad shops and bad mechanics.

Well we may have it resolved.
Shop A, that did the original trans work said there was a line that could not be flushed and was part of the radiator.

Firestone said no it was part of the trans and should be cleared as part of a rebuild.

Firestone flushed that line today and on a test drive the truck worked perfectly. They are going to let it sit over night and test drive it again.

Here Firestone is an all purpose shop, and for our town is one of the best, but costly. We just did not have nearly $4000 to fix the trans, though I wish we had. The cost now for the work Firestone has done is about $200, and it looks now as if I will have my baby back tomorrow evening.

Thank you all for your input and ideas.

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2Ti 1:7 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
Luceo non uro

If you drove a GM or a Ford and compared how they shift to teh dodge trans in them years. The dodge was a funky shifter any how. Some of them dodge trans did not seem to shift right till they were warm. Which was around 6-7 miles. If you still have a issue. Get a shop to switch in a differnt trans and add a nice external cooler in front of the rad. If it continues to have issues. There is some hard parts that are junk that only switching the whole trans will fix.

Bob

foxtrapper ,

I believe the bump she was describing is the trans dropping down to safe mode some call it limp mode. This trans was designed to drop into second gear and stay there if the sensors detected any problem with the trans. In theory this was to enable the driver to more likely be able to limp to help. I never cared for the idea.

Jim

So is $200 your only cost to this point?

............The only way your radiator could "explode" is for the Fan too come loose from its shaft and destroy the radiator..........
.............Normally , there is a separate , sealed compartment on the radiator where the trany fluid is pumped , INTO , which is used too both , warm and\or cool the tranny fluid depending on operating conditions ! A problem can develop , IF , a leak developed in the metal wall separating the coolant and trany fluid and the two different fluids started mixing together . This doesn't happen very often but , IT is a possibility . Beeman is quite capable of accurately diagnosing your problem if you can accurately describe the symptoms of your problem . , fordy

Nope, that is on top of the $2400+ rebuild they did last month.

As far as the radiator, all I know is what happened, truck suddenly got hot and I had water everywhere on my windshield, sure looked explosive to me in heavy traffic.


I am hopeful we are done with problems with my baby for now.

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2Ti 1:7 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
Luceo non uro

MJsLady,

Radiators do blow. fordy can insist it can't happen, but as a mechanic and engineer I can say with certainty it can happen, it does happen, I've seen it happen. Don't fret over someone foolishly insisting it can't happen.

I do hope you can be done at $200. Though if the work done by the first shop was as bad as indicated, I think you need to be squirreling away your pennies.

Thanks.
Yes that is my plan, to have enough to replace it again asap and horde that in case something else goes wrong!

__________________
2Ti 1:7 for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.
Luceo non uro

Get a yellow pages and locate your nearest Toyota dealer...Glen

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The more a man travels, acquires wisdom and learns about life, the more likely he is to marry a Country Girl.