99 Contour transmission problems

The_Specialist · 11-03-2008, 06:49 PM

I have a '99 ford contour (SE), and I have transmission problems. problems that can lead to

My transmission is unnecessarily downshifting, actually violently knocking into and out of the lower gears. it started with just the overdrive, when it start lightly downshifting for no reason, and only happening over 60mph

My dad got a tip from work that he should add more ground wires to the trans because the existing ground could not be working right anymore, so we did that (we checked out the voltage from the casing of the trans and the negative terminal of the battery, and there was about a 1000mV difference (about 1 volt), and after adding the ground wire, there was only about 24mV of difference), and it worked.....for a while. After driving around to test how it worked, it suddenly got about 10x worse than before, when it started violently knocking through the gears, and it happened at all speeds, to the point of me considering calling a tow truck, when I decided to shift to 2nd (because it wasn't responding to turning off overdrive (button on the side of the shifter)), and it stayed in second. After driving in second for a while, I wend back to drive and it started working right again for some reason.

also, when my parents took my car (because i took my dad's to work, and my sister took my mom's to work), they took my car, and it worked up until about an eigth mile away from our home, when it started to do it again.

Anybody know what could be wrong, and what I could do to fix it(if possible)? Since I am going to college, and would have trouble affording to have it fixed, advice would be greatly appreciated?

Also, whenever the temperature drops below freezing, the check engine light comes on, and it reports that the engine is running lean, anybody know what's going on there as well?

streetking0712 · 11-05-2008, 10:55 PM

I'm having a similar problem that turned out to be a rubber hose connected to the pcv valve. It had a BIG hole in it. Is your check engine light on?

The_Specialist · 11-05-2008, 11:26 PM

To answer your question, the light is off the whole time, apparantly it for some reason it thinks that it's normal.

Actually, I had to take it in to a mechanic, because after doing some research, it turned to that something was wrong with the range sensor. sure enough, new part, and it's working fine. jusging on how the old part looks, I think some crap got in and screwed it up.

I also had to take it in because me, my mom, and my dad have been juggling 2 cars, and I have to get to school, and my mom's car has a touchy pedal, and has a small back window (convertable), and has no way of making a line in, meaning that I can't use my mp3 player(the main reason why I like my tape deck, and i'm not switching to a cd player).

BroncoJoe19 · 11-06-2008, 03:44 AM

my mom's car ... has no way of making a line in, meaning that I can't use my mp3 player(the main reason why I like my tape deck,
You can get an adapter that goes into the cassette player, that you can plug your mp3 player into. It should cost about $15.

theoldwizard · 11-06-2008, 11:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The_Specialist

...whenever the temperature drops below freezing, the check engine light comes on, and it reports that the engine is running lean, anybody know what's going on there as well?

What specific error code do you get ?

The_Specialist · 11-06-2008, 04:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by theoldwizard

What specific error code do you get?

I can't remember the exact code, as I took it in to autozone because they do free error code reporting, and it's always reporting "bank 1 lean" and "bank 2 lean" (the banks are the 2 sides of the V6, I believe.)

also, to broncojoe19, that's what I have in my car, my mom has a cd player, I used a cassette adaptor as a means of a line in for my mp3 player.

anybody know how I can activate html codes? because all I see is the html code, not the result of the code (such as bolding and the quote system).