Hey guys-

I have posted on here before about wierd transmission problems. I have a 1999 Contour SE - V6. It has been a good little car with the exception of my strange transmission problem. Now it seems that I am faced with fixing it at a very expensive price, or trying to sell it for the payoff as is. Please tell me what you think. I really am not sure what to do at this point. Here is the history...

60,000 miles August, driving from FL to GA on the interstate...my od off light starts flashing and I notice a little smoke coming from under my hood. CEL also comes on. Take it to the dealership. They ran the codes in front of me and got the tranny code and the CEL code. The decided to check the CEL problem first. They could find no cause for CEL but cleaned injectors. After that I asked about the tranny code. They did not write it down and they had cleared the computer. They told me to drive the car on another long hot trip to get it to go off again. I was in college, wanted no problems so I never drove it past Atlanta again.

100,000 miles-car is shifting rough, mechanic puts new special Ford tranny fluid in and all seems well.

110,000 miles (last Fri)-I drive the car over Neal's gap (mountain) and it starts shifting rough...about 30 miles down the road the od off light starts flashing. I pull over and there is alot of smoke coming out from under the hood. I popped the hood and couldn't tell where it was coming from. I looked under the car and noticed tranny fluid dripping. It stopped after a couple of minutes. I called the tow truck and had it towed to the mechanic.

The mechanic drove the car and can find no fluid leak...in fact car drives fine. He said that the problem is caused by something internal in the tranny and it will have to be either rebuilt or replaced in order to fix the problem. That looks like it will cost around $2900 (1 year warranty).

What would you do?

Fix it
Sell it for payoff ($1,700)
Push it off a cliff (just kidding)

I like my car, just not sure where to go from here...$2900 is awfully steep. Why is it so darn expensive...I have friends with 350 Diesel trucks that had their trannys replaced for $2500 with a 2 year warranty