Not sure where to start but hopefully my fellow *awesome* Grand Prix owners can help me out. I have a 2008 Grand Prix GXP with 130,000 miles. I drive 120 miles daily - all highway miles. I know, my poor carI don't think this has anything to do with it, but I was in an accident around April of this year where my front end was just bleah. It made it through though and the engine was not touched, by inches. After it was fixed, I had tons of issues with my car overheating, leaving me on the side of the road, etc. I had to get stranded 8 times or so before it was finally fixed - some type of leak that kept being missed because it was coming out to the exhaust - dont' ask me. I couldn't make sense of it. I also had my engine light come on and off a few months ago. I can't remember the code but according to the mechanic it was some 02 sensor that causes you to fail the emissions test but it never came back and he made sure it was working so it was never changed.
So, my real issue. I had been noticing recently that when I would be at a complete stop and would accelerate, my car would be slow to react, then jerk itself into gear. It would happen randomly and lately had began happening every other day.
I just came back from a vacation - drove 1,000 miles total this weekend with no issue. I went to yesterday on my usual 60 miles to work and I began noticing my car just felt weird. I would reach 65-80 range and my car would feel like it was buckling, even on cruise control. I immediately thought of my transmission, especially because of the jerk I mentioned above. I had always heard that I needed to get my transmission flushed at 100K miles and I never did so I figured this may be why. I drove it slowly to work and afterwards, went to the Kwik Lube near my work and asked them to flush my transmission. The fluid was a gold brown and they did it.
So, today, I have not yet felt the jerk from first (which I consider a good thing) but now, still feel the weirdness when driving from 65-80 range. So, I tried a bit more things to see what it was and let me see if this makes sense. I was at a stop, accelerated and felt my gear change after reaching 2500 rpm or so. I guess this is first. I kept my foot on the gas and it reached 2700 maybe again and switched fine. I BELIEVE (may not be - I just know I was going 55 or so) I was in 2nd going to 3rd or 3rd going to 4th - not sure since I am not good at this but the RPM gauge would not go over 2000RPM. It felt like it was pushing. I kind of pushed gas harder (I prob shouldn't have) and it jumped to like 2400 hard and my car felt like it buckled. It was in whatever gear this was and it feels horrible. Like, rocky and shaky and jumpy. Its weird to describe.
Any ideas? It only does it when it reaches this gear or higher speeds. Is my tranmission going out?![]()
One thing I should mention, around a year ago, I had taken my car to get my oil changed and the guy came out and asked if there was a trick to putting my car into drive because IDK what he did but my shifter was just going up and down the gears and not actually going into gear. It would stay in Park (as shown in my display). We saw what it was. The "arm" that comes out and moves when I move the shifter and connects to the part that changes the gear in the transmission was no longer connected. I got my car home and I purchased the cable and just shomehow replaced the small connector piece instead of getting a mechanic to replace the entire thing. It worked and it's still connected so I don't think this is the problem. Sorry - I'm not good with car vocabulary.
Any ideas please?