hey guys, been a while since ive been on here but i have a problem, i read through a heap of other threads but arnt exactlly helping. i have a 2002 TJ and ive been told that my gear box is on the way out. startng on sat night, i put her in R (its a auto btw) and it jolted backwards before ingadging gear properly, it happened more that night but nothing for 3 days and then it happened in D and R a few times, once at a intersection once i lifted my foot off the break and it happened to when i hadnt changed gear. i went to a mitsubishi service center today and they put that machine on it that resets the car to defult mode, which basically made it worse. had to drive at 80km on the freeway cause it wouldnt engadge top gear and would do 3500rpm at 100km. went for a drive to show the old man tonight and it didnt play up...any ideas

Standard questions, what is the fluid condition and when was the last FLUSH, not just dump and fill

many will no dounbt state that you can reset by battery removal, leave a while, re connect and relearn, there is a thread on the relearn proceedure. This may help but certainly would not hurt either. The MUTII reset will not completely erase the memory

I assume yo have the 4 speed auto, by the sounds of the not changing gear and the clunk it really sounds like it is stuck in third ie limp mode, are you getting first and second gear at all? Could be something simple like inhibitor switch or solonoid connector dirty which seems to happen a lot in the J series

Apparently the fuild looks really good, but not sure when it's been flushed last, with the reset it seemed to have made it worse cause yeh it wouldn't get into 4th at untill last night (which about 2 hours after I finished driving it), they tried the mut but there was no errors. It was hard to tell which gear it was crabing definatly 3rd most likely 2nd aswell, the reves were flarrie untill it found a a gear, the N light was flashing while I was in gear. Yeh Mitsubishi reckon the box is on the way out and it's gonna cost 3300 to get a new onE, haas anyone heard of refurbished ones and if so what they could cost? In the mean time I'll give the inhibitor switch a go and the solonid a clean...thanks for that idea let u know how that goes

$3,300 IS for a reconditioned box! Check the TPS too, that can give those symptoms too, if it is out of adjustment or has failed. Sounds like it is an intermittent problem, so check the electrics - plugs and sockets on the gearbox, as mentioned above. If it is a mechanical failure inside the box, it would be in limp mode - 3rd gear only - all the time.