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well i took a look under my car and i notice that the tranny is covered in some type of grease it could be powersteering, or tranny fluid. But if it is tranny fluid what might be the cause of this?

Ok well if you say it's grease you see wich could be a possibility. It could be from the axel though so that would not cause a tranny problem. but i would get it checked out befor you ruin your axel.As far as the tranny goes heres what to do. First you need to buy a automatic trans filter and gasket kit it's about 15-20$. There is no drain plug for emptying the tranny fluid. What you have to do is unbolt the trans pan, it's located right under the trans. It has adout 20 bolts or so going all around it. there will be a few bolts that might be hard to get to. What you have to do is when under the car put a jack under the tranny and lift it up some, this will allow acces to the bolts and also able to pull pan out. As you loosen bolt's BE CAREFULL trans fluid will start to leak it can get messy so have something under to catch fluid. Then just pull pan out. clean pan well, there are two magnets that catch metal shavings clean them also. Finaly change the filter and gasket and put back together but also be carfull not to over tighten bolts as they can snap, it happened to me, it was only one so I got lucky. Lastely add tranny fluid Make sure YOU DO NOT OVER FILL!! as this can result in burning out the coil packs in the tranny leaving you to buy a new tranny or rebuilding it so make sure to only add what oem says. This happened to me and my trans went south. So please for your own sake watch how much fluid you add!!!

well i marked to the full line,(the _ _ _ degrees) when the car was running at normal running temperature. I assume this is normal. Unfortunatly i still have the flashing hold light, i even reset the ecu. I have notice the car runs better but it still will not shift in to fourth. Any suggestions?

Well my friend if by changing the filter and fluid did'nt fix the problem that means the coil packs are no good, and well time to rebuild or replace tranny sorry man.

s h i t, thats wierd man cuz i had it rebuilt last year.

Well from what you are telling me if it is not shifting into last gear or if maybe you do not notice or just cant tell it may be skipping another gear such as 2nd or even first gear. that problem is usually caused by ethier a cloged filter or bad coil packs, now I would say get it checked first. but if you just had it rebuilt a year ago it should still be under warranty. but get it checked i'd say the chances are high that what I said is what it is but if not please keep me posted, just incase this were to happen to an other MX'er I could give them the right advice.

I had this same thing happen on my '93 a few years back. Then it all stopped as quickly as it started and it has been fine ever since. Never did find out what the problem was. If it isnt slipping in the first 3 gears I would look towards the speed sensor before anything else. If your fluid level is ok and the tranny was just rebuilt a year ago your filter shouldnt be clogged this quickly unless somethings coming apart inside. I would suspect the speed sensor. Like the last post said if you find out for sure let us know this problem seems to come up every now and then and it never seems to really be answered what the specific problem was. I would hinge my bet its electrical though.

thanks for the input. Well it definitly not the filter because i replaced it last weekend, so it had to be coil packs or speed sensor, where abouts is the speed sensor located? could it be anything else?

Its under the intake hose on top of the tranny. It has a small 2 prong plug that attaches to it. You'll need an ohmeter to measure the resistance it has. Should be between 200-400 ohms.

I am not sure if this will help anyone but it fix my problem. Over the winter we had my hold light started to flash. My car was very hard to put into gear and it missed shifted, and sounded like it was having hard time shifting.<p>So I took my car to Mazda cause I read alot of people had this issue and it was usually bad sign. The guy comes out with a 10$ bottle of desgresser or lubercator and sparys a bolt. He says to me this happen to his car before and all it was, was this white metal bolt [ Not really sure of the technical name of this bolt ] gets stiff and if you apply this for a week and move the gear shift it fixes it. So now a 3 months later no more issue. I now spray this bolt everytime I change the oil

Now that you say that I seem to remember reading the same thing for this on a different Mx3 forum a while back (was it you??) The bolt was all crudded up and just needed to be lubed. Makes you wonder how many people got screwed out of a $1500 repair bill when all they needed was something easy like that...

yeah I know eh, sucks if you ask me. Main reason I posted rather see them put that money towards more mods! As for the other board, nope wasn't me. Anyone who having this issue or finding there car hard to put in gear should try it.

bolt eh? it would be nice if you could specify the bolt...?

I have EXACTLY the same problem with my automatic transmission, I will let you know if I locate this "white bolt".
Let me know if you find it first!

I have EXACTLY the same problem with my automatic transmission, I will let you know if I locate this "white bolt".
Let me know if you find it first!