jbausano

I have a 99 Legacy that intermittently will not go into Drive on the auto transmission. The engines revs but the car just sits and does not engage. When you rev the engine higher it will "clunk" into gear or slip in and out of drive and buck a little until it starts going. Most of the time (80%) it just goes right into drive and is fine. Reverse is never a problem. Our local mechanic changed the AT fluid and filter but this has not solved the problem. At the same time the speedometer intermittenly will stop working when driving. Could these be related? I read on another post that the speedometer speed sensors can affect how the transmission shifts. Is this only while driving or could it affect the initial shift into drive. Why would revving the engine engage the transmission? I've also read on other posts that dealers and mechanics recommend rebuilds or replacement of tranny when this happens. One guy spent the $$ on a new tranny yet the problem was not fixed. Any help on this would be much appreciated.

I'm curious to know if the VSS fixed the problem? I'm currently having problems with my 99 Legacy that are somewhat similar. The transmission sometimes will hesitate going into drive or will not go into drive at all. Reverse works fine. Once it gear it runs fine. At the same time the speedometer sometimes just stops working while driving then will come back on. Took it to my regular mechanic and he could not figure it out. He couldn't get any error codes and said most likely because the problems are intermittent. He was able to replicate the transmission problem but not the speedo problem. The don't always happen at the same time. He did a flush and fill of the tranny and replaced the tranny filter but this has not solved the problem. It's at the dealers service shop right now and they have not given me a diagnosis yet. Any advice you have would be much appreciated.