Hi everyone, need a bit of help here.
my car: 2000 explorer 199500 miles 4.0 SOHC v6 AWD XLT automatic tranmission
clean title
Trouble codes: none at the moment
Problem: I just finished driving around 150-200 miles mostly highway today then on the way home at night (maybe the weather affect something idk) as i was accelerating from 10-15 miles merging onto the highway, as it got around 40-45 mpg i felt a slight thud and suddenly the engine immediately revved to about 5000 rpm and basically stayed around 3000-5000 rpm and i had no acceleration couldnt get past 40-45. Pulled over to a complete start, retried same thing except the shifts were a bit harder and noticeable. Couldnt get past 45 mph, engine revving at around 3-4k rpm.
finally pulled over again, shut it off waited a bit. Shifted a bit weird at first, seems fine afterwards.
made it the rest of the way home checked transmission oil, lighting was dark so couldnt see too clearly but there was a light coat of oil on the dip stick. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary.
anyone got a clue what the heck just happened and what i can do to “fix” it if something is broken? Couldnt find nothing online similar.
recent work done:
oil change yesturday
fuel filter about a two weeks ago
spark plugs + spark plug wires changed a month or two ago
Just topped off some coolant yesturday too
It sounds like your transmission is failing. When the engine revved up was the transmission slipping or did it drop to a lower gear? (No acceleration makes it sound like slipping.)
You'd have to take it to a transmission specialist to be sure about what's going on, or at least a mechanic with a high-level scan tool that can read transmission codes. (An inexpensive generic OBD2 scanner won't.) If lucky it might be something like a shift solenoid. On the other hand, 22 years and nearly 200K miles is pretty good lifespan for one of those.
Thank you.
Sad but true. The transmission probably starting to go out. That's what happens with those Fords at about that mileage. Internal warm and it clunk and slip and probably soon it will go out entirely. Pretty much typical with that mileage on an explorer
Hi scotty, should i add a bottle of lucas stop slip will that let it last quite a bit longer? Thanks!