My automatic went into N by itself while driving?

CaKJFreedom · **Posted:** Wed Mar 01, 2006 10:20 am

Edit-a year later and 30K miles later it does it again. Anyone got a guess? Lots of grinding going into Park. Tried a couple times, turned it off, back on, still no go. And then it remembers it's in Drive and goes. WTH?

Hi all,

I was on the way to work this morning and slowed down for a turn/veer in the road. Halfway through the turn I went to accelerate and the engine only whirred with the sound of parts moving around and wouldn't go. When I was on the straight part and gassed it I got the same result and pulled over. It was like I was in neutral but you could hear parts trying to catch. After I pulled over for like 2 seconds I gave it gas and she was good to go the rest of the way to work just like normal. Never took it out of drive or anything. So...what the heck? It's a 2003 Freedom 4wd automatic with 57k on it. Any guesses? I'm definately calling the dealer when they open since the tranny should still be under warranty, just wondering what you guys think. Thanks for any input.

CaKJFreedom · **Posted:** Wed Mar 01, 2006 7:19 pm

Alrighty, it's at the dealer and we'll see what happens. Hopefully they can duplicate it. It' drove home perfect (of course)

LIKJOWNER · **Joined:** Wed Jan 11, 2006 9:25 am **Posts:** 26

Did you check your Transmission fluid? It is proberly low, when you turn you are loosing pressure from the lack of fluid in the pressure valves. When did you last get your transmission serviced? At 54K it should of been done twice and if you just had it done , it wasen't fill to proper level. Check with warm tranny and on level groung.. Good luck

CaKJFreedom · **Posted:** Wed Mar 01, 2006 8:21 pm

Thanks, hopefully it will be that easy. Services are built into my payments, sucks for payments, but on the good side my Jeep has had every single service it should have.

Jeepjeepster · **Posted:** Wed Mar 01, 2006 9:28 pm

It should be under the 7/70000miles warranty.

CaKJFreedom · **Posted:** Thu Mar 02, 2006 7:29 pm

They're trying to figure out if what happened was because of the locker in the rear or the tranny. The tech was wondering if the Powertrax would accidentally disengage both sides leaving me with no go. I vote tranny. They still have it and we'll see what they come up with.

Katmandu · **Posted:** Fri Mar 03, 2006 9:18 pm

My wife's 05 Lib w/5800 miles on it just did this same thing the other day.

Coincidently, this happened right after we had it in for the E14 Recall. Needless to say, it's going back into the shop next Wednesday.

What's the latest on your Lib ??

CaKJFreedom · **Posted:** Mon Mar 06, 2006 10:19 am

Which recall is that? They say they did one for the transmission, and now it downshifts a little rough around 30 mph. Uh, thanks. :roll:

So $300 bucks later the transmission looks fine and their guess is that the Powertrax disengaged both sides of the rear at once leaving me with no go, then re-engaged back to normal. All that with no lurching forward or big bang. I have doubts but at this point not sure what my next step is aside from waiting for it to do something again, or paying them more $ to poke around. Please let me know what you find out with your wife's KJ. Thanks.

Katmandu · **Posted:** Mon Mar 06, 2006 4:01 pm

CaKJFreedom wrote:

Which recall is that? Thanks.

The E14 is for a Transmission Cup Plug Bracket/Parking Pawl.

My wife's Lib doesn't want to downshift at highway speeds. This just happened after the E14 Recall was performed. It's going into the shop tomorrow AM to see what is going on.

CaKJFreedom · **Posted:** Mon Aug 20, 2007 1:41 pm

So what the heck. It did it again. If I take it to the dealer I'll probably pay for them to not duplicate the problem again. I'd like it if a Jeep that's not even four years old stayed in the gear it's supposed to be in and doesn't junk out or kill me. Didn't think to put it in 4wd to see if it'd go. Is this what a Powertrax does when it dies or is this something totally different? :evil:

dirtykj · **Posted:** Mon Aug 20, 2007 2:36 pm

The only thing remotely close to this was when I used to have my GPS mounted on the dash. Every now and then it would fall down to the center console and hit the shifter such that it goes into N. Now you'd think this is obvious, but I don't see how it would go into N from being hit ... after all N is in front of D so if the impact is from things dropping from dash it'd have to be pushed FORWARD which seems counterintuitive.

Weird, but that's happened to me three times ...

DarbyWalters · **Posted:** Mon Aug 20, 2007 2:38 pm

I would definitely see if it moves in 1st or 2nd and also 4wd...

The rear end could sound the way you described AND you would hear metal noise like it is trying to hook up. That is exactly how my PowerTrax sounded when it gave up the ghost. Try reverse also.

Have a 4WD shop pull the rear diff cover and take a look.

CaKJFreedom · **Posted:** Tue Aug 21, 2007 12:43 pm

There's nothing hitting the shifter for sure.

Jeep took the cover off last time and saw nothing, I guess it's time to try that again though. And yeah, Drive, 1,2 and Reverse did nothing but it grinded like crazy trying to go into park. Nothing sounded different and it just caught the gears and would go again before I could think about putting it in 4. So it was like a minute or a minute and a half of cussing, then it was normal.

On the good side, I still have the original parts (somewhere) if the Powertrax comes out, now I just need $.

Thanks guys.

DarbyWalters · **Posted:** Tue Aug 21, 2007 2:16 pm

Make sure you get it out before it "welds itself in"...I had to get a whole new rear axle (from the junkyard)

Jeepjeepster · **Posted:** Tue Aug 21, 2007 2:47 pm

Do you have fulltime? If so, run around in full time and see what happens..

CaKJFreedom · **Posted:** Wed Aug 22, 2007 1:24 pm

Nope. Time to drive the XJ for a while.

My automatic went into N by itself while driving?

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