A friend of mine bought a 2000 Bonneville, 3800 without supercharger,
85000 miles, and I drove it for a few miles just to see how she did. The first thing I notice going down the highway at 55 mph is that the tach is up around 2 grand instead of the 1600 or so rpms it should be running at that speed. (the dealer "should have" noticed it too, but it's too late for that now). Anyway, it appears pretty obvious that the TC isn't going into lockup. Most of the times I've seen a TC lockup problem it's the opposite: it doesn't unlock when coming to a stop and drags the engine down and stalls it. Is the problem likely to be that the TC lockup solenoid is just 'dead' and needs replacing? Is this a common problem on similar cars? Or is there a reasonable chance that the TC lockup isn't getting the command to engage, for some reason? Is there any special tools / tricks to changing one of those solenoids on this praticular model?