Hello all,
This is my first post, so please bear with me. I have a 2006 Mustang GT with just over 30,000 miles, stock everything (no modifications of any kind--no tunes, nothing). I've had very few mechanical issues with the car, the only things I've needed replacing are a blown sparkplug 2-3 thousand miles ago and a dead battery around 1 thousand miles ago.
I do regular maintenance at the dealer every 5 thousand miles, and just had the 30k service done a few weeks ago, so all the fluids and filters and so forth that are supposed to be replaced by this time in my car's life should be all taken care of.
Now, here's the problem. I've done a lot of googling, and I can't seem to find anyone who's experienced this. Basically, it seems like at very low speeds (or sometimes from a complete stop, like at a light) the automatic transmission acts like it's shifted itself into neutral.
A typical example is where I'm on a road and turn into a parking lot. I let my foot off the gas, maybe get down to 15 or 20 mph, and then when I need to pick up a little bit of speed I tap the gas and absolutely nothing happens. If I stomp the gas, what generally happens is that nothing happen for a few seconds and then *boom* the rear wheels go nuts and spin out, leaving rubber burned onto the road. If, instead of stomping the gas, I gently coax it just right (this is hard to do properly) then instead of the other problem I get a very hard shift, like so hard the car feels like it shakes a little bit.
Letting it go to very low speeds by letting the foot off the gas seems to cause the problem the most often, but the other situation that seems to cause it is when I'm coming from a complete stop, like at a traffic light. I let my foot off the brake and, instead of inching forward, I stand absolutely still (a few terrifying times I was on a slight incline and the car actually started inching backwards before I slammed on the brakes!). The same thing happens after that as it does in the other scenario. That is, either I'm left peeling out or, after many long seconds of coaxing, I get a hard shift and it works more or less like normal from there.
The from-the-dead-stop problem happens maybe once in about 45 mins of daily driving--it is extremely unpredictable, but I'm panicked everytime I stop at a light because I'm worried my car might slam back into the vehicle behind me if the road is on an incline. I can get the other setup (letting my foot off the gas, coasting to a slow speed, and then tapping the gas) to happen about twice as frequently as the from-the-dead-stop setup.
So I took the car to the dealer today and they called me back, "we took it on the highway and nothing happened". I told them "no, please, try some city driving, some stop-and-go, and let me know if you have any better luck."
Nothing weird ever happens at highway speeds.
They want to keep it an extra day and try tomorrow. They say the computers are throwing absolutely no diagnostic errors. Does anyone have any ideas on what might be wrong, or something I can tell them might be the problem that they could look at tomorrow? I know it's probably obvious from my post, but I'm not particularly handy with cars, and I could seriously use all the help I could get.
My initial thoughts were that there's something wrong with the transmission, but it's quite possible it's something else entirely. The intermittent nature of the issue is quite frustrating. Major transmission work wouldn't worry me because I'm still under the powertrain warranty, but I know they won't replace/rebuild the thing if they can't see the issue.
Would it be smart to insist on driving with their techs sometime if they're unable to reproduce the problem tomorrow? The thing is, it could take up to 20 mins and even then, there's no guarantees that it will happen. I would hate for that to happen and thereby look like the customer who cried wolf, but I think I may have to suck it up and just do that if this goes on much longer.
Thank you for any and all help. I read through these forums when my passenger footwell started leaking water after heavy rains and it saved me a costly trip to the dealer.
--Vik
This is my first post, so please bear with me. I have a 2006 Mustang GT with just over 30,000 miles, stock everything (no modifications of any kind--no tunes, nothing). I've had very few mechanical issues with the car, the only things I've needed replacing are a blown sparkplug 2-3 thousand miles ago and a dead battery around 1 thousand miles ago.
I do regular maintenance at the dealer every 5 thousand miles, and just had the 30k service done a few weeks ago, so all the fluids and filters and so forth that are supposed to be replaced by this time in my car's life should be all taken care of.
Now, here's the problem. I've done a lot of googling, and I can't seem to find anyone who's experienced this. Basically, it seems like at very low speeds (or sometimes from a complete stop, like at a light) the automatic transmission acts like it's shifted itself into neutral.
A typical example is where I'm on a road and turn into a parking lot. I let my foot off the gas, maybe get down to 15 or 20 mph, and then when I need to pick up a little bit of speed I tap the gas and absolutely nothing happens. If I stomp the gas, what generally happens is that nothing happen for a few seconds and then *boom* the rear wheels go nuts and spin out, leaving rubber burned onto the road. If, instead of stomping the gas, I gently coax it just right (this is hard to do properly) then instead of the other problem I get a very hard shift, like so hard the car feels like it shakes a little bit.
Letting it go to very low speeds by letting the foot off the gas seems to cause the problem the most often, but the other situation that seems to cause it is when I'm coming from a complete stop, like at a traffic light. I let my foot off the brake and, instead of inching forward, I stand absolutely still (a few terrifying times I was on a slight incline and the car actually started inching backwards before I slammed on the brakes!). The same thing happens after that as it does in the other scenario. That is, either I'm left peeling out or, after many long seconds of coaxing, I get a hard shift and it works more or less like normal from there.
The from-the-dead-stop problem happens maybe once in about 45 mins of daily driving--it is extremely unpredictable, but I'm panicked everytime I stop at a light because I'm worried my car might slam back into the vehicle behind me if the road is on an incline. I can get the other setup (letting my foot off the gas, coasting to a slow speed, and then tapping the gas) to happen about twice as frequently as the from-the-dead-stop setup.
So I took the car to the dealer today and they called me back, "we took it on the highway and nothing happened". I told them "no, please, try some city driving, some stop-and-go, and let me know if you have any better luck."
Nothing weird ever happens at highway speeds.
They want to keep it an extra day and try tomorrow. They say the computers are throwing absolutely no diagnostic errors. Does anyone have any ideas on what might be wrong, or something I can tell them might be the problem that they could look at tomorrow? I know it's probably obvious from my post, but I'm not particularly handy with cars, and I could seriously use all the help I could get.
My initial thoughts were that there's something wrong with the transmission, but it's quite possible it's something else entirely. The intermittent nature of the issue is quite frustrating. Major transmission work wouldn't worry me because I'm still under the powertrain warranty, but I know they won't replace/rebuild the thing if they can't see the issue.
Would it be smart to insist on driving with their techs sometime if they're unable to reproduce the problem tomorrow? The thing is, it could take up to 20 mins and even then, there's no guarantees that it will happen. I would hate for that to happen and thereby look like the customer who cried wolf, but I think I may have to suck it up and just do that if this goes on much longer.
Thank you for any and all help. I read through these forums when my passenger footwell started leaking water after heavy rains and it saved me a costly trip to the dealer.
--Vik
