I have a 2009 Mazda 3i with an automatic Transmission and a 2.0 engine with 220k miles. Other than the following issue the car drives perfect. I had problems with the transmission when cold and you put it in drive, the digital gear number display on instrument panel would show 1 for a split second then 2, and after a second or two it would show 1 again. Sometimes it seemed when it would stay showing 2 for too long it would make a loud clunk and jerk car and go into limp mode. The car would still be standing still. If I turned off the engine and re-started it, it would go into gear normally and drive normally. It would show a DTC code P0894 Trans Component Slippage. This code was triggered when the car was sitting still. I took the car to three transmission shops no one could pin point the problem as it drove and shifted normally after the initial putting into gear. One transmission shop mentioned he thought it was electrical but gave no further details. One transmission shop said due to the slippage code and the amount of miles on transmission it is a good idea to rebuild. I had the transmission rebuilt, when I got it back I did not immediately notice the issue, but shortly after I did notice it doing the issue above mentioned about the gear indicator showing 1, 2, 1 but it would flash 2 super fast. But it never affected the engaging of going into gear.

I am now two years later after transmission rebuild and about 20K miles later the issue is coming back. It does the gear indicator 1, then 2, then 1 again, this is on the instrument panel. This time it has not yet thrown a DTC or gone into limp mode but it now has a delay to engage until it finally goes back to 1. I took it back to the transmission shop they said transmission was fine since it did not have a DTC for transmission. They recommended a guy that works on their clients PCM’s. I went to this guy he could not find anything wrong with the PCM but re-flashed it. This had no affect on it.

I purchased a Diagnostic scanner (I know dangerous for a lay person 🙂 ). Things I have noticed. From reading the shop manual 1st gear should have solenoid 2 and 3 at 100% the rest should be 0%. In the diagnostic scanner I looked at live data commanded gear, solenoid 1, 2,3,4 and coolant temperature. I thought maybe it had something to do with warm up cycle and let it warm up to 160 degrees before putting into gear. When I put the gear selector into drive, command gear shows 3, Solenoid 3 goes straight to 100%, solenoid 2 stays at 0 (Should be 100%) and solenoid 1 (which should be 0%) rises up to about 30% then comes back down to 0% once at 0% Solenoid 2 begins to rise to 100%, once at 100% at first nothing happens then gear commanded gear drops from 3 to 2 and then to 1 and now it seems to be engaged. Sometimes there is a clunk when it engages other times it goes into gear smoothly. And just like before once you get into 1st gear the car will drive perfectly shifting through all the gears normally you can even turn it off and as long as it does not cool down (I am in FL so the ambient temperature can make it take a while to cool down) too much it will work properly. I know old transmissions 1970/1980’s when they were going bad would not go into gear when cold in morning, but once transmission fluid warmed up and the seals soften they would work again. But this does not seem the same to me, but that is why I am looking for help. 🙂

Some other codes that have been there since original transmission issue before rebuild, communication errors General Electronics Module U1900-0F and Instrument Cluster U2516-FF. I am considering a rebuilt PCM at this point and just because it is cheap maybe a Transmission range selector sensor. With the age and high miles on the car I do not want to pour a LOT of money in it, but with prices of cars today due to chip shortage I would like to hold on to it for a while longer. Anyone have any suggestions on how to resolve this issue? Or PID’s I should be looking at to get more information?

PS I believe I have some Forscan recordings of the solenoids and commanded gear if anyone is using Forscan I can send those.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you,

Jim