My Dad has a 95 STS and is having trans trouble. After about 10 miles of driving it will suddenly get stuck in 2nd. You can still make it go fine but it will not up or downshift. When you let off on the throttle it will coast like it slipped into nuetral. ( i'm not sure if the coasting thing is abnormal because I never tried driving in 2nd before) From scanning some threads it looks as if shift soleniods are a common problem. He just had the starter replaced the day before it started this problem, not sure if that means anything. Any thoughts?

 

Transmission is electric shift, It defaults to 2nd gear only. Shift solenoids are likely cause, however that is not a repair for the novice. Find qualified person / shop take care of it. Hope it helps.

 

I do all my own repairs and usually all his to but he didn't want to bother me with the starter. He took it to a shop and they told him what every tranny shop says when you have a problem "rebuild". I will be the guy that pulls this tranny if need be and I'm not really looking forward to it . I here that you have to remove the valve body to get at the solenoids. I have removed some from tranny's over the years( I'm 45) to install shift kits and minor repairs.Do you thinkchanging the soleniods will bemore involved ? I like to think that I can screw it up as good as anyone! haha I do want to thank you for the reply.

 

If you pull lower pan, you may see broken shift soleniod. If you have done shift kits before you should be able to handle it.Refer to GM Do***ent ID# 393446 Hope it helps

 

Hey Slowroll you were right! I dropped the pan and I could see the broken soleniod. I stopped by the Caddy dealer and picked up the soliniod kit wich came with the extra bracket that holds in the small filter . The one that pops out under pressure and smacks the soleniod breaking it. I guess this happens mostly when your on the highway The kit cost $73.40 ( 2 soleniods , small filter , small bracket , longer bolt for bracket ) Plus you need around 7 quarts of fluid. It was an easy fix ( around 3 hrs) but I did have a little trouble keeping that one check ball in it's place while putting the valve body half together. It took sometime to figure how to read the PCM codes. Most OBD1 testers don't work on this model ( there is no B wire on the test port) What I didn't realize is that you can get them on your dash by using your climate control buttons in the right combination to get into the PCM. I would like to thank all the people who make information available on this sight and others, without good people like you the trans shop that said rebuild for $2,200 may have sucked in another one! Thanks again everyone!

 

BRN

Thanks for the compliment. slowroll has been a great asset to this site along with our other techs. Sounds like you are pretty good shadetree mechanic yourself. Good luck.

G.A.R.Y.