Bought our 01 Toyota Sequoia used in 2003 with 38K on it. Never towed with it and now has 182K on it. Last tranny service was 4 years ago at 160K and mechanic said normal wear for vehicle with those miles. This is wife's vehicle she uses daily for work and she said it recently developed a "clunk" when it shifts on occasion. She said she only notices it when she first drives it either leaving home in the morning or coming home in the afternoon from work. So I took it for a drive last evening and sure enough it slammed pretty hard into 2nd or 3rd gear after I left our driveway going down a small hill. Took it over two mountains with no slippage or further hard shifts. checked tranny fluid level and all is well. These vehicles were known to have problems with Overdrive and planetary gears but this seems to be something else. Could it be a sign of things to come like eventual tranny failure or might it be something else in the drivetrain. Has only done it for me one time so hard to diagnose but I assume it is a transmission issue.
Hard shift (clunk) into 3rd gear?
- Thread starter wolfehunter
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I did not consider motor mounts but will check them out.
Motor mounts are fine. Here is an update. I thought it was third gear but it is overdrive that slams pretty hard. Odd thing was it only does this on the first shift to OD after initial start up. You can stop and go and it shifts into OD without issue the rest of the commute. But if it sits for awhile it will slam again on that initial shift to OD. Wife drives this car so I instructed her to press the OD switch on the shift lever EVERY time before going anywhere which takes it out of overdrive. Driving without OD hurts the gas mileage a little but it has not clunked/slammed for 6 days straight.
I researched it a little and these trannys are known to have problems with planetary and sun gears which I don't fully understand though I saw pictures and they get chewed up. More from hauling trailers which this car never did but regardless a weak spot.
I am making an appointment at my trans shop for routine maintenance and am hoping he can diagnose things by dropping the pan. I figure he is going to find some pieces in there as the two times it did it while I was driving it shuddered the whole vehicle like hitting a speed bump. Not good. I wonder how long I could get away with just driving it without using OD?
And why only slamming on initial shift to OD and the rest of the commute is fine? Tranny fluid not getting to that gear when tranny cold yet? Screen blocked?
I researched it a little and these trannys are known to have problems with planetary and sun gears which I don't fully understand though I saw pictures and they get chewed up. More from hauling trailers which this car never did but regardless a weak spot.
I am making an appointment at my trans shop for routine maintenance and am hoping he can diagnose things by dropping the pan. I figure he is going to find some pieces in there as the two times it did it while I was driving it shuddered the whole vehicle like hitting a speed bump. Not good. I wonder how long I could get away with just driving it without using OD?
And why only slamming on initial shift to OD and the rest of the commute is fine? Tranny fluid not getting to that gear when tranny cold yet? Screen blocked?
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