Number 1 I do love this car.
I don't know what is going on with the transmission in it.
When I bought it a year ago with 136K miles it had a problem with the transmission where it felt like the torque converter wasn't locking up properly. The dealership said they would have toyota fix it. Toyota changed the fluid. I got it back the thing was exactly the same except it took longer for it to mess up. So the dealership took the car back. I found out later that the dealership didn't have Toyota replace the transmission, they instead found a "low mileage" used trans and put that in. It lasted about a year.
Now I had a shop put another used transmission in it, and it didn't last a few days. It seems fine then all of a sudden it seems like its caught between gears or slips and goes nowhere and it downshift hard.
It was throwing generic codes until it finally threw a code for fluid temperature.
I do believe this transmission is cooked as well.
I just dont know whats causing all this hassle and expense.
Any ideas?
2013 Toyota Highlander 142K miles 3rd trans since I've owned it. 3.5 V6 AWD
Interesting…
Sounds like the damned 6 speed Aisin TM-60LS, Is that the one you have?
the temperature sensor throwing errors is usually just the shifter position sensor board getting fried. Return it into the shop - they put in a tranny with a bad module.
(Used computer boards are not advisable but Toyota typically doesn’t sell parts like this, they rather sell you a transmission)
does the slipping happen in low or high gears?
I remember a lot of them would slip in 1st and 2nd (especially if the owner was “brave” enough to take them off-road) and that would require not only friction packs but also clutch drum assemblies. (I do not remember any gearbox that had this issue expect for early 2000s Hyundai i30)
Genuinely Toyota transmissions became a joke after the TB-50LS. Funnily enough they still make the 20 year old TB-50LS design in all of their commercial / quality cars like the Toyota Hilux and Toyota Fortuner where planned obsolescence isn’t acceptable… but in the rest they put in terrible trannies like the TG-80/81SC and more transmissions that are not ment to last…
