Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums General Troubleshooting Help! ATX Transmission Jumping up and down in gears.

I have been having this problem for about a week now and it's scaring the living crap outa me.

My 96'SE is acting funny. Upon takeoff, it won't shift out of 1'st gear until about 5000 RPM's. Then once it shifts depending on the speed, it will upshift, then downshift, then upshift, then downshift, and so on until I let my foot off of the gas. And then whenever I press the accelerator it will downshift 1, maybe 2 gears and will jump around again. I can't get it to cruise a steady speed without the gears jumping around. Combine this with bad motor mounts and it makes for a horrible experience.

It seems to have started last saturday...my wife was driving the car and it kept dying and starting back up and it turned out to be a loose negative battery cable. And then the problem showed up sunday morning. Could this have cause a short circuit in a sensor or computer or somehting, causing this?

SO...I stopped driving it a couple of days ago with fear of breaking something more. I tried the TH fix thinking if the throttle was haniging it would cause the shifting problem...but it didnt help.

Please help...I'm really upset and thinking about selling my car, even though I really love it. It's just costing me too much money.

Thanks Alot!

Could be a bad vehicle speed sensor?

That is what I was thinking too qaz.

Ok...i will check that...Where is it located?

I will check in my haynes manuel this evening.

Just thinking, if the VSS was bad, the cruise control and speedo wopuldn't work would they?
So that doesn't seem like it could be that.

Hum, not a hundered percent sure. Try personal messaging Terry Haines!

Just a simple question did you check the tranny fluid?

Yeah I checked it. It was up to the right level. The fluid was a bit dark, but not black like I've seen in some cars...

I will check into it and see if I can figure out what may be going on......