Greets all! New Reader/Subscriber, so I hope I'm not duplicating something commonly asked. If I am, apologies in advance.
I have a 99 SL2 I picked up about three years ago with 66K miles on it. It currently has 79k miles on it. With the exception of the last on, I get the oil changed religiously every 3 months (I never make it to the mileage mark). I've checked the tranny fluid which the level is good and color/consistency right.
Suddenly two nights ago as I got home (about a 10 minute drive from work) when I put the car into reverse, the engine idled up but you could feel that it didn't catch into gear (plus the car "coasted" like it was in neutral" then about five second later the gear caught with a audible "clunk" and the car shuddered. I parked and left the car running to check the trans fluid. Tried reverse a few times and the problem didn't go away.
Next morning I drove the car fine with no problems until I got to my day job (about 15 min drive) and as I parked, the car did the clunk again when I hit reverse. (but did not when I started the car and pulled out of the driveway). When I left work to go to my second job, the car began shifting oddly into second and third gear.
After either a quick start (heavy on gas) or light, easy start from a stopped position, the car would ramp up on the RPM's and you could hear what I can only describe as a "static" like noise that lasted for about
3-4 seconds in the front of the car. And you can feel that the car is briefly losing drive power before this switch (more perceptable than normal). At first I didn't realize it was me but it coincided with my acceleration. When it goes to third the noise and "slippage" occurs again but the noise only last about half the time. Higher gears work fine.Does anyone have any ideas on this? It's been suggested to me that one of the vacuum hoses for the transmission may have come loose, and that because of the "young" age of my car and the relatively (speaking) low mileage, that there shouldn't be a problem with the transmission. \
Any advice or information would be extremely appreciated.
Thanks!