04 Galant ES TCL light + tranny issues

[ihatemy04galantES]

So this is the second time this has happened to me, during the first incident, after ignoring the following issues for about a period of two weeks (the symptoms were sporadic until a drastic decline one afternoon) I was forced to replace the transmission as the first one blew. BTW, I have an Automatic Transmission.

Second occurence of the same issue:

I was driving down the road the other day and wha-lah!! The 'TCL Off' light comes on and the car starts to stutter at low RPM's, as a matter of fact, it began to stutter and THEN the light came on and stayed on as I continued to drive. THE ABS LIGHT DID NOT COME ON! (Almost everything I have found has this TCL light and the ABS light coming on together.) If I attempt to give the car more throttle when the car stutters, the stuttering gets worse (obviously) and won't downshift. So I park the car and pour a bottle of Lucas Transmission Fix fluind into the transmission, following the instructions, of course. Now, I attempted to drive the car again and when I turned the car back on, the 'TCL Off' light was still on and the problem still existed. So I babied the heck out of it back to my driveway and shut her down. What in the world is wrong with my transmission?? This is my second transmission now and the first one went out with a bang with about 100k miles on it and this one I bought used with around 40k miles on it and have only put on about 20k. I did the swap myself last July and haven't had ANY issues with the transmission until now. About two weeks ago I took the car to a shop to have the oil changed (Yes, God forbid I go and let a shop work on my car) because I didn't have time to do it myself and the car was about 500 miles overdue anyways. They checked my ATF fluid for me and told me it WASN'T dirty, but in the near future I'd need a service flush, just for proper maintenance. Then...this happened.

I'm not trying to blame the issue on the shop at all and I would like to keep this tranny around, I'm a college student and certainly don't have the funds for another transmission. I am an experienced mechanic, but this one has me stumped. To give some more description, the stuttering does not happen during shifting points, but when it does reach the shift point, the transmission slips.

[galantlvr34]

i have read that the tcl(traction control light) comes on when the computer finds a something wrong.is the check engine light on too?you are only suppose to put Diamond SPIII transmission fluid in the transmission,using any other transmission fluid could cause problems with transmission.

[ihatemy04galantES]

the SES was on prior to this incident, it was a catalyst warmup failure, I'll try flushing the fluids and putting the SPIII you just recommended. I'll read the code again to see if anything else came up.

[galantlvr34]

yeah i read that if the check engine light is on the tcl light will come on too until the problem is fixed.the Diamond SPIII fluid is available at the dealer,it is genuine mitsubishi transmission fluid.

[ihatemy04galantES]

do you know about how much it costs?

[galantlvr34]

i think it is about 7-10 dollars per quart.you probably need around 6 or 7 quarts.

[ihatemy04galantES]

well i solved the problem, turns out I was having a misfire, not only was there a puff of black smoke coming out of my exhaust every other second, but when I pulled the plugs to investigate, they were covered in oil, so researching what the heck that could be I narrowed it down to the spark plug well seals, so a new valve cover gasket set and new plugs took care of that problem.

Then there's the transmission, I spoke with a technician from Big Two Mitsubishi out here in East Valley and he explained to me the reason behind manufacture specific ATF and so heeding not only his but also vr34's advice, I did a simple drain and fill of 4.5 qts of Diamond SPIII ATF and the car runs fine, no 'TCL off' light, not misfires, car shifts smoothly and operates well!

Problems solved.

[showtime]

Nice!

[galantlvr34]

thats great dude.i am glad you figured it out.