My ex puts about 700 miles a week on her 05 Focus with automatic transaxle. She currently has 172000 miles on it. It started hesitating when it shifted into overdrive. He BIL who works at the Ford Dealership test drove it, I guess hooked up to a diagnostic computer and said third gear was out of it and recommended a rebuild. She couldn't afford the quote from the dealer or major chains, but the local independent transmission shop gave her a reasonable quote. But after they had it for a few days they called and said they thought it was an electrical problem. A couple days later they called and said they had tried 2 or 3 different things and that didn't fix it, and then said they thought it was a problem with the case and recommend she put a new (used out of j/y) trans in it. They are closed for the holiday so I can't call and get exactly what they tried, as I know this would be helpful. I will get that info as soon as possible and post it. Just wondering right now if anyone else has had this problem or has an opinion of what is wrong.

When you first drive the car and the trans is cold it will manually shift into third ie. I disable overdrive and manually shift. But when it warms up it won't engage third.

Thanks

Phillip

 

Sounds like 2 pros told you it's a trans problem. I would bite the bullet and get her a trans. Change the fluid and filter every 50K as well even on future vehicles. It's not a guarantee, but it does reduce transmission problems. Good luck dude. Let us know how it goes.