No 4th gear.....

[joeyoung]

I would like to say hello to all members of this site, and hopefully you all can help me with my 04 range. I recently have had a problem with the transmission not shifting into 4th gear while driving. I noticed this because the rev's at 70mph were over 3000. I stopped in the middle of the night turned of the range and immediately started it up again. Once I did that, the message center lit up with "trans failsafe program" and almost immediately went away. I put the range in drive and tried the sportmode which was not operating, and to my surprise it started working again. I drove off, and everyday after when starting I check if the sportmode works, and it does....Last night I came home and parked it in idle for a while then turned it off. When I turned it back on I drove away, hopped on the freeway and noticed the first gear had a beefier engine humm and as I drove up to 70 mph the 4th gear would not kick in. I tried to get the sport mode to work and it was'nt-again. I exited the freeway turned off the range and turned it back on and again the "trans failsafe program" in the message center popped up quickly went away and then I put it in drive tried the sport mode and everything was operating fine again. CAN SOMEONE PLEASE HELP!!!

I have read in these forums, and found 3 possible culprits
1. The radiator's bottom rows may be clogged and the tranny's cpu believes the temp. is getting too hot for operating and throws itself into failsafe. -------but i had the temp checked at a local mech. that is pretty good and he states the op-temp is good.

2. The battery may be going bad and could possibly be causing the disruptions.

3. The tranny's gear box module/ better known as the high/low motor transfer box is going out.... I also noticed that I could not switch it into low from neutral this last time and that while driving the range it jerks a little when getting off of the accelerator.
PLEASE HELP!!!!!! DONT WANT TO GO TO THE STEALER, THEY NEVER SEEM TO KNOW ANYHOW WHAT THE REAL PROBLEM IS OR THEY JUST WANT TO PUT IN MORE FAKE WORKING HOURS.

 

[joey]

First welcome to the forum and sorry you had issues posting... the forum software didn't like your color change ... odd but it happened.

Any ways... sounds to me like a possible battery issue, have it load tested to make sure. Any auto parts store should be able to do this.

 

[joeyoung]

Thanks joey...

Hey joey, nice to meet you.....I will try that batt. load test tomorrow at the autozone and see if the batt. is the prob.. I almost have a feeling it might be the transfer case shift motor, but I have to start somewhere. I just hope it does not get too expensive. I'll keep you posted and if you have some more input that would be great. I read on some other site about a guy with the same prob. and after changing the radiator and transfer case the main prob. was the motor, and if it wasnt that he was going to change the ecu that goes to the trans case shift motor. But it turns out the motor is the prob.... The crappy part of owning this car is that most of the parts come from the dealer and for this part alone I was quoted 1800.00 dollars new. Is there anyway to disconnect the motor and just forget its even there.
I'll start with the battery. what's the norm for a good range battery?

 

[joey]

Don't order from the dealer... Call Nathan in my signature, I am sure he can get it cheaper.

 

[joeyoung]

no 4th gear....

Thanks for the info joey, I went over to the autozone and they tested the battery and to my surprise it was low amps. it was somewhere around 12.....So here I go to buy a new one and I will keep you posted.

 

[joeyoung]

no 4th gear....

Bought the new battery, the old one was from 06 and the guys at interstate had some pretty bad things to say about the old model batt. The new one seems to crank up the range better and even the illumination on the cluster is brighter as well as my headlights. At least it seems that way. So far so good, but I'll keee up the posting.

 

[joey]

glad to hear we could help.