Howdy!

My wife's '93 Impreza with a 1.8 and an automatic AWD tranny and 150,000 mi. has been giving us fits lately. Upon starting the car..and it doesn't always happen..it seems as if it is starting off in 2nd gear. Then it shifts slower than normal, sometimes revving up to 3500 RPM before shifting in 3rd or 4th. The other night when I was driving it from Boston to our house in So NH about an hour drive, it didn't shift into 4th at all! I wound up driving it while it revved to 4000 almost all the way home. I recently changed the tranny fluid, thinking that would help but it hasn't changed a bit. The old fluid was dirty but no metal chunks. The magnet in the pan did have some stuff stuck to it but it was microscopic.

Could it be that the transmission "brain" is bad?? Today it started to give me a hassle and I shut off the engine waited about 20 seconds and fired it back up without any trouble. Once again, this problem doesn't happen.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Temp probe inside the trans.