Richard,
I am new to this forum but have also been a victim of what I call the "not paying attention to the problems of a used car". However, I sympathize with your predicament and might be able to help you a little bit. I bought a 1999 Dodge Durango with 111,000 miles on it. I got such a good price on it I figured I could spend a few bucks on repairs. There were several over the next few months but the worst of all was when it started going into LIMP mode. I just knew with all those miles it had to be transmission related. After reading everything I could find and buying a Haynes repair manual I was sure the problem was the speed sensor or the other sensor in the transmission. But just to be sure I took the SUV to my trusted AAA transmission repair shop. Their diagnosis was if the sensors were bad they would eat the old ones:grinyes:
They promptly showed me the pound and a half shavings in the bottom of the pan. They gave me a price of $2400.00 to do the swap. Thinking I could do better on the price of the transmission,. I got on the WEB and purchased one for $600 less than theirs. They said fine, but to get the proper warranty I would have to add a SUPPLEMENTAL transmission cooler about 1/3 the size of my radiator. Long story short- Been working fine ever since. So, you might want to consider installing a extra cooler yourself- about $90 and 2 hours of work. Hope this helps!!