If you read my previous blog about car shopping, I'm going to assume you are aware of the fact that I ran into some transmission problems with my hoopty. Yes, who would have guessed that a 2003 Chrysler Concorde would have transmission problems? Well, it indeed threw me for a spin thinking I would be needing a new car before I'm ready to purchase one.
Well, great news! My hoopty has been fixed! ....they think. So, in all of the troubleshooting that the mechanics did they were able to get the transmission to act up a few times for them, one of the times blowing a fuse when it happened. Since they replaced the fuse, however, they could not replicate the transmission problem one time.
“Before you say you can't do something, try it.” ~Sakichi Toyoda
I got a call telling me my car was ready to be picked up from the shop. When I asked what the problem was, I got an interesting response, "we're not really sure." LOL! That's not usually the response you hope to hear from people you are paying to fix something. So I dug deeper with a simple, "what do you mean?" To which the response was interesting. The mechanics were going off of the assumption that it was fixed because they couldn't replicate the problem.
I wouldn't normally be ok with this, but after having read up on the problem on my own, I found out that the transmission will lock into second gear (a sort of limp mode) if the TCU (transmission control unit) senses an abnormality from one of the sensors coming from the transmission. Since they had removed and reinstalled many, if not all, of the connections between the TCU and transmission they must have (we hope) fixed a loose wire that could have wiggled, causing a short and in turn causing the limp mode.
Oh well, I guess I will go with that since I don't have the time or inclination to check everything out on my own. On the plus side, they only charged me the diagnosis fee, so the "fix" was relatively inexpensive. The hoopty lives on!