Linkin

Hey all, Now I have searched high and low for an answer to what I am about to explain and have come up empty handed time and time again.
About 2 months ago my fiancée was driving our 2002 Is300 in a bad rain storm and severely bottomed out the car on a sizeable dip on her way to her doctors appointment. She parked the car and went on her way to her appointment not thinking about it since the car is lowered it bottoms out quite frequently on speed bumps and such. She came home afterwards and said the car was acting funny having to keep the rpms pretty high for just going 40mph all the way home. She pulled out here phone and showed me pictures of what I knew was transmission fluid but didn't know. There was an aftermarket transmission fluid cooler that sits beneath the radiator that had been smashed and dented and the the return hose was detached. That allowed for all of the fluid to drain out by the time she arrived at the house, about a 10min drive. It sat overnight and the next day i went to start it turned over fine shifted into reverse and nothing. Drive, nothing. My brother and I bought a new cooler and refilled the transmission fluid and the car is acting very strange. Now keep in mind this was nearly 3months ago and I have driven it about another 1300 miles, its now at 195673. The drive gear still works just fine but neutral is also drive gear. Theres no reverse at all. I do get some hard shifts from first to second but only the first few times then its fine. We had the check engine light checked and i didnt do this initially because my catalytic converter throws and code and it said ashift silenoid was bad.
My question is if this might be a cheaper fix than a new/used transmission? The car is a 2002 Is300 automatic with 195673 miles. I really dont want to drop thousands of dollars to replace it in a older car. Maybe something a little simpler than that? I dont have any experience with this. Any thoughts or insights would be greatly aappreciated thanks

02gita

i surely hope you sourced a used transmission by now.. that is the cheapest option and there should be plenty of them fo sale