Hello,
Whenever I reach between 35 and 40mph, I hear a shuddering sound toward the front of the car. It only does this during accelerating up to/through this speed range. It does not happen when decelerating by coasting/braking. It also does not happen if the shifter is not in the Drive position. ("3" for example.) During the shudder, I can see the speedometer slowly moving up and down over about a 2~4mph range. Once the shuddering stops, the speedometer is rock solid again. I don't feel the shudder in the steering wheel when it happens. This seems odd to me, but then again, this is my first front wheel drive car, and maybe front end problems aren't as easily communicated to the steering wheel as they are with rear wheel drive?
I had the tranny rebuilt back in 9-03. It was starting to make very loud thunks when downshifting, finally reaching a point that a strong thunk when coming to a stop would leave the tranny in limp mode. (I would have to turn the car off/on again at the light to continue on normally.) Ever since then it will occasionally make a thunking sound that can be felt/heard when slowing down to stop. It varies in severity from barely noticeable to quite loud, but nowhere near as bad as before the rebuild.. The people at the transmission shop insist that "all Chryslers do this when downshifting". I've owned the car since it had 14K miles on it to the present ~70K, and in the seven years before the problem that led to the rebuild it never acted this way. I'm on the last month of the warranty, so any information and/or links that supports my side of the situation would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks for any help, DSF