So lately my car has been acting up. I think it's my transmission but I'm hoping its something simpler so I'm gonna bounce this off the people here, hopefully someone might be able to help.

My GS is a 2013 AWD with the 6spd. I got my transmission fluid drained and filled around 91k miles (done by my dealer). After that, transmission was butter shifted great no issues. Lately I've noticed that from stop the transmissions at times hesitates for a split second. Additionally a few times shifting between drive and reverse was rough enough for it to stand out to me as weird. The strangeness continues when coming to a stop, the car sort of lurches or feels like struggling to downshift from 2nd to 1st, although it's a very soft lurch or jerk. However when moving, it shifts and drives fine no matter how hard I push it.

I took it to a friends and he ran it with his nicer ODB2 scanner and read some codes. He found 2 stability control low level faults and a parking brake overheat (lol). I remember hitting a pot hole hard one day enough to rattle my car, bottom out the suspension and honestly was surprised it didn't break my wheel or bend something. I'm wondering if it's related or not. Anyway, anyone have any ideas to try or check?

 

When was the transmission fluid changed? Could be that the dealer did not follow the prescribed procedure regarding temp, RPM's, etc.

 

@aachowhan - The 6-speed transmission in your GS 350 AWD is a brute and rarely ever gives any problem. The transmission will shift differently (holding a gear longer) before it reaches optimal temperature. Also, since it gets signaling from the ECU it can sometimes cause downshifts to react a bit differently at times. So, chances are very slim that your transmission has a problem. Whatever you experienced is likely totally extraneous and nothing to be concerned about. Sometimes when we sense something a tiny bit unusual we tend to worry when it's really nothing at all to be concerned about.

 

At 91k miles and I went to the dealer hoping they followed procedure. The guy Im' going to now cleared the codes hoping the hesitation and weirdness was the stability system freaking out over the codes. I'm driving it around now, it does feel better, but if those stability codes come back we know where to start.

 

Good to know. Yeah I've definitely seen it hold gears longer during the colder months. We cleared the codes for now and see if they come back.

Thanks for the level headed advice. I was jumping to conclusions it was the transmission but your right, let's see how it plays out. I'm not ready to get rid of this car and I'm certainly not looking for another car payment haha.

 

Normally sometimes those codes are a bad speed sensor or wheel sensor. Could be that pot hole hit damaged one or the other.

Try holding the Trac off button down for 10 secs and let both dash indicator show up, then cut them off and drive it.

 

That's a good idea. I'll try that. Thanks!

 

I must say, JGScott and BCLexus ars a wealth of little tricks and tips to try before going to the dealer and spending diagnostic fees and who knows what else they may come up with to repair. Thanks to you two, and everyone on here for the ideas, suggestions, funny comments, and informative posts.

 

This sort of stuff is why I come to the forums. You get great advice and ideas (some that hurt your wallet haha), but over all a great community.