This started happening just recently. Every once in awhile, when I'm accelerating, the car will start jerking around and then when I go to press on the gas again its as if I was in nuetral. All I have to do to get out of this is throw it into neutral, then put it into gear, and it works again. Any ideas as to what could be going wrong?

 

Sounds like your tranny is slipping. check your fluid level.

 

yea, if thats an automatic, its entirely possible it is low on fluid, or going bad....

 

Could be 1) low tranny fluid 2) worn out tranny 3) or worn transmission shifter bushings. My '94 would occasionally "slip" going up hills and I was afraid the tranny was dying. Never had to shift to neutral when that happened though. But my car would sometimes not engage drive from park, without trying several times-which is a sign of bad transmission lever bushings, or some name like that. I had those rubber bushings replaced, and no more trouble selecting gears. And It hasn't "slipped" going up hills. Maybe it is worth considering. But, it could be other problems.

 

The only difference is that I drive a 5-speed, not an automatic. So I'm thinking I might just have to take it to my mechanic for this problem. Maybe its my clutch, then I can convince my parents to replace it with the stage 1 performance clutch for me since I'm a poor college kid

 

I talked to my mechanic and we have come to the conclusion that this is probably a fuel injection system problem, as it only occurs when I'm accelerating, and lately my idling RPM has been anywhere between 700 and 1300.....bad injectors maybe? So its not really getting kicked out of gear like this post says, it just seems like it whenever the damn thing bucks on me. What I don't get though is why it will only work after I put it into nuetral and shift it back into gear....

 

So it's you that's taking it out of gear. Not the tranny. You could have any number of things that would cause your engine to stumble like that.

 

I wasn't clear when I posted this thread, because I was completely oblivious as to what was going on. It felt as if I was out of gear everytime this happened is all I was saying, but obviously I still was in gear.