My wife's 2000 RS 2.5 Impreza has an automatic transmission and lately has been taking longer to engage into drive when moving the gear selector from park/neutral to drive. I called the dealership to make an appointment, but their initial response was that up to 5 seconds was normal?!? However, it never took this long before which suggests that something may be wrong. It appears to take about 3 seconds before it engages, but use to be almost instantaneous. I don't drive the car much so her perception was that it's been like that for a while, but I noticed it immediately after driving it earlier this week. The car was just in for it's 60K check up back in March and it may have started after that service inspection. However, they didn't change the transmission fluid at that interval. In fact, the transmission fluid hasn't been changed since 30K. Could it be as simple as changing the fluid or is it more complicated than that? Just looking for some insight on what it could be and whether or not I may be able to resolve it prior to running the car down to the dealer next week.
Any helps is appreciated.
Thanks,
-Jerry