Thread: lost all gears and stuck in gear 1!!!

was cruising and doing some spirited driving on the way home on the highway at 1AM in the morning. was only applying like 35% throttle when i felt and saw the car free-rev. i let off and waited a couple seconds then i applied throttle and it appeared to be alright but suddenly it free revs again and i lost 4th. coasted off to the shoulder and to a complete stop. tried to apply throttle again in D and it didnt budge. i shifted the gear selector to 3 and still no good, then 2 the same and finally gear 1 and the same result. so i decided to shift it to park and turn the car off but when i tried to shift it to park it wouldnt budge from gear 1!!!!what makes it worse is since its stuck there i cant take out my key??? another problem is since i turned the car off, i cant seem to start it up again. the system primes but it wont crank.

i was on a slight incline and if i let go of the brakes it'll start to coast since i guess the cars somewhat in 'nuetral'. i applied the parking brake and checked under the hood. checked fluid level and color and nothing wrong, no leaks and i checked the tranny clip just in case it was broken and/or torn. everything looked 'normal' i didnt really hear any whining noises b4 this all happened. im guessing my tranny's toast and where i assume, after some researching, i snapped the chain?am i in need of another tranny? is there any way at the current moment to to remove the key from the ignition? i tried every possible way to try and start the car but it wont my remote start wont work, i tried disconnecting the battery for a few minutes and i even tried to jump the the starter selenoid and still wont crank.

It likely isnt your chain as it would have made a noise and wouldnt have free-revd then gone back into gear and the lose it all for good. There is a button next to the shift to let you move the shifter if the interlock has it locked and there is also a button just under where you put the key in that will let you get the key out. Are you sure something isnt jammed in the console preventing the shifter from moving? Its odd to pull down into one and get stuck and not be able to shift back up but it could be a number of things and is just hard to say without seeing the car. As mentioned above the key wont come out and it wont start because the manual position of the trans is not in park or nuetral

well i got the key out by shifting the shifter lever in the engine bay to nuetral and then shifted the shifter knob in the cabin to park and got it to crank and get the key out theraftter, however the tranny still doesnt go into gear in any gear selector.

edit-when i start the car, i notice theres a slight whine around the tranny area.

If you do drop the pan and it doesnt look too terrible I would pull the filter out and cut it open. They are a common cause to no movement and whining as the can become very contaminated and get plugged up preventing fluid from getting proper volume to the pump

well the car's at the mechanic who well look into it soemtime today if possible. he does mainly imports but he said he did a trans swap on a grand prix in the past b4.

Originally Posted by Trannyman95

If you do drop the pan and it doesnt look too terrible I would pull the filter out and cut it open. They are a common cause to no movement and whining as the can become very contaminated and get plugged up preventing fluid from getting proper volume to the pump

i can ask him to pull the filter and see if its clogged or not, if thats a good idea lol

forgot to mention, if i rev the car in "D” or any other gear and hold the RPMs to above ~4400RPMs, the speedo/HUD will start to climb but the car wont move. I think I held it to 4700RPMs and the speedo was at ~10-15mph but again, the car didn’t budge.

There is always the posibilty your diff let go! You can ask them to try this.... Leave one wheel on the ground and the other up off the ground, either side is fine. IF the wheel will spin while the other one is glued to the ground so it cant spin then your diff is shot. If that checks OK then another possibilty is like what Scotty posted had happened to his diff and the sun/planet gears are destroyed which will also cause the car not to move and if something got lodged into where the park finger/gear is then it could have caused why you couldnt move your shifter as those parts are directly behind the diff.

so if the wheel of the ground moves freely then the diff went out, is that what u mean dave?

edit-ok i re-read it so i understand your instructions dave. i'll see if they can check that method.

edit2- if thats the case, i'd need anther tranny anyways or is it cheaper to have it repaired? im a tranny noob

If the diff is shot and you are paying to have a shop repair it you can expect to have around $400-$800 into it, and then you still have a stock trans with other potential problems. It sounds more like you have some other trans issues and a new trans is likely what you are going to need but you are at the mercy now of hearing what they find out and then decide from there what to do.

hmm ic....i'll let u guys know once i get the results :-\

Originally Posted by Trannyman95

If that checks OK then another possibilty is like what Scotty posted had happened to his diff and the sun/planet gears are destroyed which will also cause the car not to move and if something got lodged into where the park finger/gear is then it could have caused why you couldnt move your shifter as those parts are directly behind the diff.

who's scotty?

My buddy's tranny did similar things when we were installing performance shift on a 02. The tranny didn't know what gear it was in it would go like 15 mph's at full throttle and I believe it didn't shift either and had to use shiftlock to release key. Turned out we burnt 3 fuses installing the performance shift switch. I don't remember all the fuses but one of them was BTSM or something like that. Fuses are cheap to check.

well i looked in the fuse box under the hood, and if theres another fuse for the tranny other than the TCC fuse 31(i think its #31), please let me know :-)

The BTSM fuse is in the glove box. Might as well check em all because i don't remember all the fuses.

dave, when one of the wheels o=is off to check if the diff is ok or not, does it have to be in neutral or any gear or does it matter?