We've got a 96 Pathfinder with an auto trans, 135,000 miles. The auto trans is showing some signs of wear, slipping excessively shifting gears, some weird hesitation when accelerating hard. If it's really slipping is it better to rebuild it now or should we just drive it until it dies? Basically, will it be cheaper to rebuild the trans while it's still partially functional?

 

i personaly would drive that biotch till it dies..

 

I'd assume it would be a little cheaper to fix it out...however... the tranny could slip like that for many years and not fully give up.

 

On my 1995 T-Bird, it would slip all the time and when my gears changed from 1st to 2nd I burned rubber lol I got a new proforance computer chip and it fix everything, maybe you need a computer flash? or is it really obvious thats it's bad, if so I would drive it till it dies but I would go buy a rebuild tranny and get ready for a swap, you can get rebuild tranny for cheap, or even pull one from a junk yard!

 

I was going to buy a 96 pathy with a tranny on it's way out. It was doing what you described, slight slip when accelerating and weird vibration when shifting into overdrive. The quotes for a rebuild were from 1200-1600. The 1200.00 quote was a friend of a friend that works for AAMCO.

Both places did tell me that the tranny cooler on the 95 and 96 pathy's sucks and it should be replaced. I guess they get plugged and that contributes to the tranny failing.

I would get it fixed asap if you are going to keep it.

 

oh wow.thats a lot of money for a tranny repair..
maybe drive it until it dies or trade it for now.thats what my friend did..
he traded his bad tranny suv for a newer one at dealer..

 

Yea thats a good idea, you can get good money back on a trade in for a newer Suv, mainly depends on who you deal with, maybe look into that, unless you really like your car.

 

thats the way 2do it

 

We're pretty set on keeping it for the next 2-3 years at a minimum. Everything else is in pretty good shape. Thanks for the input on the tranny cooler- I'll make sure to run that by our mechanics. I might grab an aftermarket cooler from AE and toss it in for good measure since they won't do anything except OEM replacement work. I'm definitely not swapping or rebuilding the tranny on that thing myself- I long ago figured out that I prefer having the maintenance on the daily drivers done by a pro. Working on a car under pressure to fix it just to drive to work the next day- no fun. I'll stick to working on my weekender.

 

Well Good Luck!