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1) Under the tire well above the dog bone for suspension is a Negative or ground cable bolted to the transmission this sometimes comes loose and will prevent your car from starting or even turning over.. There is also a harness that passes over this bolt which will rub out on the back side in time.. This will cause problems in the egr, i.a.c., t.p.s and Ats.... Fix the wire fix the problem
2) if you open your hood under your battery not directly but down low youll see your solenoid packs and other transmission sensors follow these to the thicker wire harness down to wear it almost touches the frame and meets other wire harnesses... The back side of this "crossroad" rubs up against some kind of flange on the transmission with bolt holes in it.. This is the problem with transmission issues in the 2004 Chrysler Pacifica 3.5l.. Fix the wire fix the problem!!! I spent alot of money on parts to figure out this simple easy cheap fix.. Make sure to reinforce protection in the back of theose wires during fix.. Hope i save dyou some
I bought the 04 Pacifica 2wd 145k miles, about 2 months ago from private seller. On the drive home after buying it the check engine light came on. Stopped at auto zone, code p0420 (catalytic convertor). Ended up buying some cataclean and used that a few times (about 4 bottles on separate occasions). Car was running fine. Unhooked battery to reset code hoping the cataclean made a difference. Nope. still reading code p0420 and also a couple small evap leak codes popped up (gas cap is fine btw). Continued to drive it without problem. Except a slight kinda popping sound under front driver side wheel area. I assumed it was a tie rod end or ball joint or something. After checking that it all seemed fine. Sway bar link, tie rod end, upper and lower ball joints were fine. Thought it could be transmission mount, but was never able to actually find the mount under the car. CV joints are going bad but the sound it was making wasn't consistent with bad CV axle sounds.
anyway, couldn't figure that out, car was driving fine so I left it alone for the time being.
Then about a week ago, I noticed the car was shifting fairly hard, so I jumped on the freeway to give it some gas and see if would keep shifting so hard (jerking), and it wouldn't get out of second gear. RPM's was up to 4500 but car was still accelerating. Which was weird to me. Got off freeway checked the trans fluid. It was a bit thin, but red and full. So I tried it again, and again car wouldn't pass second gear. So I took it home and parked it. tried to drive it again after about 2 hours and car was fine. Was shifting smoothly.
So next morning car was shifting smoothly driving fine (except for the popping, clunking sound under driver side front tire area which has worsened alot). But after driving it for a while it began shifting hard again, Jerking through each gear. So went home and Same thing happened the next day. Seemed like it was only happening when the car would heat up.
Except the last few days it has been not catching gear (staying in second) from the moment I turn the car on. Except when I drove in the rain. I guess the rain hitting it cooled it off or something. Car would still jerk a little while shifting but it was actually shifting gears. Weird, I know.
Took it to a general mechanic shop. It gave a code p0700 there. along with the evap and cat codes. Guy said it was probably the catalytic convertor causing trans to slip. Being clogged and getting too hot (which made sense to me due to previous statement)
Took it to a muffler shop to change out the cat. Expert there, said my catalytic convertor was fine and so was my o2 sensor. Ugh.
So, took it to a transmission specialist. He hooked up the snap on scanner and it didn't give him the evap or cat codes anymore, but instead gave a code p0700, p0731, and p0716. hmmm. He said he was 95% sure it was my car's "brain" I'm guessing he was referring to the ECM? Not sure. He wasn't very specific and his English wasn't that great.
So I took it home. not believing it was the "brain". After a bunch of online forum reading, I thought I would change out the input and output speed control sensors, praying that was my problem. But to no avail.
I'm at a loss. I'm really hoping its not the transmission itself, cuz, honestly the car is not even worth replacing the transmission.
Could it be the solenoid? The TCM? Do I have a TCM? or the actual brain? Someone please help! I plan on taking it to another transmission shop as soon as I can,(prob tomorrow) but would like some other opinions cuz I'm afraid the transmission shop will tell me its the trans itself, just to get my money.