It doesn't happen with any kind of regularity, but it's happened a few times recently: When I put my car in Reverse today from Park after starting it up, it didn't idle into reverse; I had to press the gas to get it to move at all. (Yes, I was on a flat road.) So after reversing out of my parking spot, I put it into Drive & it continued to roll backward, as if I'd put it in Neutral.

Strange, huh? What does it mean? Like I said, it doesn't happen frequently, but it's happened a few times in the last month or so (never happened before).

Any ideas?

Thanks for your suggestions.

 

what is the level and condition (age/mileage, appearance, smell) of the fluid?

 

Never heard of that before...

 

It's relatively new; I put some new fluid in about 1,500 miles ago. Haven't checked the appearance/smell of it since then, but right before I changed it I looked at it and it seemed just fine.

 

By the way, I've got a '98 SE with almost 150k on it. No major problems since I bought it 5 years ago with 70k.

 

How long has this bin happening?

 

whenever my auto died it would slip between gears and when it got REALLY bad it would even take a second to get into gear from a stop. I could rev it up and it would drop into gear like a Neutral drop, same with reverse.
at that point i swapped it out because it wasnt even going into gear until like seconds of waiting and wasnt worth driving anymore.

 

Lucas transmission stop slip. You would be surprised with the results you can get from it.

 

It probably happened for the first time a few months ago. It doesn't happen all the time, either. I mean, each time I started it up today and shifted I had no problem -- except for that one time.