Hi Scotty,
I have purchased 2000 Toyota Solara SE 2.2L Automatic transmission last week, today I noticed that the car rolls back freely on the uphill driveway if i don't press the gas. I noticed it today when I visited my friend and his driveway is steep upwards.
Is it a big transmission problem? Please guide me like should I do some repair work? if so what kind? or its not worth to put any money and get rid of the car?
About the car - it have 151K , I am a third owner of the car , second owner owned it by a lady for 18 years, before that it was a rental car for initial couple of years.
The car is regularly serviced at authorized car dealer until 110k, had all major service which supposed to be done after 60k done at 68K like drive belt and water pump change, unfortunately even the transmission has been flushed at 68k, alignments and all at the authorized dealer.
The car runs very smoothly, no major issue so I bought it before checking the history, sorry. Gears seems shifting without any hesitation, transmission fluid is pink in color and seems little low in level which I will refill it this week.
PLEASE DO GUIDE ME!! Huge fan of your knowledge and your openness of sharing it!!!!
Sincerely,
SamSolara (Sarthak)
In my opinion, its the transmission unfortunately. Rental cars are not driven as carefully as a original owner would drive. Anyways lets wait for an expert opinion.
so does mine. Is it not supposed to?
I am not sure, I am confused between,
1) It may be normal since the Modern cars have hill assist ( since it is specifically mentioned as hill assist , so the old car like mine might not have that technology ) ,
BUT THEN ANOTHER THOUGHT 2) ITS NOT NORMAL since the Gears are engaged since the transmission is in Drive, and not in Neutral then why the car is rolling back as if its in Neutral ?
wait now I'm a little confused. You title says ROLLS BACK UPHILL. So is it rolling backwards down the hill, or forwards up the hill?
Your car is not that new. I don't think it has hill assist but I could be wrong.
I'm not familiar with Solaras, but all my automatic cars would roll forward on flat ground(in Drive), hold still when stopped on a gentle hill, and roll backwards when stopped on a steep hill. This seems like normal torque converter operation to me.
GM autos also have a quirk where 2nd gear will always hold on a hill no matter how steep. I think it's engaging some kind of Sprague clutch.
"the Gears are engaged since the transmission is in Drive"
You are ignoring the torque converter which is allowed to "slip". If it didn't, then your car would stall every time you came to a stop in Drive. The TC provides the same functionality as a manual clutch, except that it constantly provides a little bit of torque.