An Uncooperative Transmission and a Brief Moment of Panic - 2007 Dodge Charger SRT8 Long-Term Test

Edmunds.comEdmunds.com Member, Administrator, Moderator Posts: 10,316
edited March 2016 in Dodge
imageAn Uncooperative Transmission and a Brief Moment of Panic - 2007 Dodge Charger SRT8 Long-Term Road Test

Edmunds.com experiences a brief moment of panic when its long-term 2007 Dodge Charger SRT8 refuses to downshift.

Read the full story here


Tagged:

Comments

  • daryleasondaryleason Member Posts: 501
    So I'm not sure why a brief moment of panic. But, I do have a few questions. 1) What drive setting were you in? Normal automatic? Did you try doing the manual shifting (the + & -) to see if it would downshift that way? 2) Could it be a throttle control issue? I know some cars use "Drive by Wire." If that's the case, it could have been that the throttle wasn't responding, preventing the transmission from needing to shift. Especially since you were saying that the car was slowing down. If it was just "stuck" in a gear, then you'd think it would increase speed, but cause the engine to wail as you run up the RPM, at least until you hit the Rev Limiter.
  • kirkhilles1kirkhilles1 Member Posts: 863
    I forget, when was the last time the transmission fluid was changed? Probably worthwhile as a first step.
  • desmoliciousdesmolicious Member Posts: 671
    kirkhilles1 said:

    I forget, when was the last time the transmission fluid was changed? Probably worthwhile as a first step.

    Yeah, do that now before waiting for another transmission incident. Lack of maintenance is not the fault of the car.
  • desmoliciousdesmolicious Member Posts: 671
    p.s. maybe wrapping the transmission in dynamat may help.
    ;p
  • 5vzfe5vzfe Member Posts: 161
    A similar thing happened in our old 2001 Dodge Ram but it was operator / design error. The column shifter was extremely vague, the indents for each gear were so small and smooth that it was easy to put the truck into 2nd instead of drive, resulting in a transmission that wouldn't shift. Tapping the shifter was the only was to get it into drive without overshooting it again. Doesn't seem like the charger has that issue though
  • prndlolprndlol Member Posts: 140
    desmolicious said:

    p.s. maybe wrapping the transmission in dynamat may help.
    ;p

    hey now!

  • hobojokerhobojoker Member Posts: 1
    What happened was that you may have bumped the shifter and set it into "manual mode" it won't stay in this mode for all that long, but it'll hold your gear for you unless you command another gear change/hit redline or hold the shift to the left or right to go back to drive.

    This is user error, not the vehicle
Sign In or Register to comment.

Helpful Tools

Most popular vehicles