My '95 GL V6 Contour's ATX has been acting up --- rough shifting from 1st to 2nd and 2nd to 3rd. I've been disconnecting the battery to reset the computer every 2 weeks or so for 5 months.
Anyway, the battery (a Die Hard International) had pretty bad corrosion on the positive terminal and I kept having to add water to one of the cells. I was reluctant to change the battery because if the transmission blows, then I was just going to junk the car.
Well, last week, I finally had enough of the battery and went back to Sears to get a new one. They gave me 1/2 price discount without much fuss. When they returned the car they said that I better have the battery's cables checked out by the dealer. It turns out that the corrosion had completely stripped off the insulation in parts of the cable. (About 6 inches out the + cable splits into 4. Two of those 4 cables had no insulation on them!)
A week later, I dropped off the car at the dealer and they called back with a $350 (!!!) quote. Apparently, they had to replace the entire wiring bundle ($200 part) and needed 3 hours of labor ($150) to replace it. I let them do it seeing as how exposed wires under the hood can't be a good thing in this damp weather.
In retrospect, if the battery weren't so good and started my car without any problems all this time, I would have gotten this fixed sooner :P
My real question: could this bad battery and wiring be causing transmission shifting problems? I did notice some correlation between the damp weather and shifting problems, but nothing firm. How does the transmission work anyway? Does it use electric solenoids to push things around or fluid pressure?
Richard
