How do I know if my auto trans is shot?
 

Hello everyone. I am the proud new owner of a 1998 s70 with a significant transmission problem. The car has 183k and was given to me by a friend who bought a new car. It is clean and runs great but...it won't move in any gear.
A few months ago the car started to get a bad vibration in the front end and we determined it was a bad support bearing for the passenger side axleshaft so the axle was just wiggling around. So the seal blew at the trans on that side and the car develped quite a leak. It was not fixed at this point but kept being driven. It was running until one day last week it just wouldn't go any more. No forward and no reverse and when it goes in park it grinds. Sounds bad right? But several quarts of oil came out when I drained it so it wasn't totally dry. Well he gave it to me so I want to fix it but do you think the trans is BAD? I can get a used replacement for around $200 but WOW, I read the procedure for taking it out and just want to check my options first.

Thanks,

Andy

Well let me ask this then: has anyone here very removed and installed an automatic tranny on an s70? Could you give me any advice/pitfalls/special tools?

no special tools really but it is really a pain because you gotta drop the whole sub frame and it took me and my friend about 13 hours to replace

Cool thanks! Did you drop the eng and trans with the subframe?

oh one thing i forgot to say is no i didnt drop the engine i took off the uper engine mount and my friend had this special thing he made that went on the spaces were the fenders bolt on and it had hooks so it would hold up the engine and we were able to rais it and lower it if we needed to

Hey Andy if your trans is shot and you decide to replace it I would be interested in the shift solenoids from the old one so let me know alright...joe