I've long known (6 months+) that my truck has a transmission problem. When the transmission needed to down shift, from 4th to 3rd gear, it would “kick” violently while attempting to down shift. The kicking would get so bad that it felt as if the engine was ready to jump right out of my truck. I figured out that if I quickly press the gas petal hard whenever I feel it needs to down shift, the transmission will “leap over” the problem area and switch to a gear that will provide the amount of power needed. I got so good at doing this, that the problem was not a problem at all. Of course, if anyone else drove my truck, they wouldn't know how to do this, so I usually volunteered to drive when someone needed my truck for something. I knew that actually “fixing” the problem would cost upwards of $2,000, and that was money I just didn't have. So I figured as long as the truck is running, I might as well make as much use of the bad transmission as possible.
Over Labor Day weekend, the battery in my truck basically fell apart and needed to be replaced. After replacing the battery, I noticed the engine felt much stronger when I started the truck. “Great” I thought, “It must have really needed to be replaced.”
Then a few days ago, I noticed a strong vibration coming from the engine when the truck was idling. This worried me, because I've heard that any kind of strong vibration in the engine means something bigger is wrong. Then, the day before yesterday (Sitha's birthday), we were driving to Nashua. The vibrating engine turned into a constant, and increasing, vibration when pressing the gas petal. Bottom line, it sounded really bad. Half way to Nashua, Sitha suggested we turn around and take her car instead. I hesitated, but realized it would really suck to have my truck break down on her birthday. So I turned around; and damn good thing I did.
About 3,000 feet from my house, theres a traffic light. It was red, so I stopped. I was watching the RPM meter closely while the truck was idling, watching for any sudden drops. Right before the light turned green I noticed the RPM drop from 1,000 to 400 and then back up to 1,000. I knew this meant it was very close to shutting down entirely. The light turned green, I went. About 2,000 feet from my house, the engine went from a loud, shuttering, vibrating noise to dead silence. “CRAP” I thought. But to my amazement, when I pressed on the gas petal the truck actually kept going. “What the hell?!” The battery light and check engine light came on at the same time. “Something must not be working...”. I was driving straight, so I had no reason to be turning the steering wheel, but I tried turning it anyway. It was rock solid. “Great, I have no power steering!” I said out loud. Sitha thought she heard me say I have no breaks and almost had a heart attack. I have to make a 120 degree turn onto my street (very annoying) and I knew without power steering that was going to be really difficult. I was also worried that the engine would die at any moment, so I didn't want to slow down at all and keep as much momentum as possible. I put all my strength into the turn and made the turn and rolled into the parking spot in front of my house. “Phew”. I opened the hood, and smelled smoke. To my astonishment, the serpentine belt had actually come off the gears and wasn't attached to anything. The serpentine belt is a single continuous belt used to drive multiple peripheral devices in an automotive engine, such as alternators, power steering pumps, coolant pumps, A/C compressors, etc. [wikipedia.org]. I heard a loud driping sound and looked underneath the truck. I saw a fluid, probably transmission fluid, pouring out onto the pavement. “Hah, I've really driven it to its limit this time” I thought to myself.
So yesterday morning I called Lowell Automatic Transmission and had them come tow my truck. Its been over 36 hours and they haven't called me with an estimate yet. I'm hoping it will be done by Friday morning and that its not going to cost me more than two grand. Luckily they accept American Express, and as much as I hate to add more to my debt position, I really don't have a choice. I paid $8,000 for the truck, two years ago and I decided I'm going to get as much life out of it as possible. I'm planning to move to Cambridge sometime next year, so I'll be using my bike or taking public transportation to commute to work, so buying another truck right now doesn't make sense.
Maybe now that the transmission problem will be repaired, I'll feel a little better about throwing a plow on the truck for the winter. I know having a plow on the front won't be good for the truck, but it's not like I'll be doing any commercial plowing; just plowing two or three driveways. That sure beats spending back breaking hours shoveling every time we have a snowstorm.
Woops, I forgot to write a follow up for this post.
The problem with my truck was in fact the serpentine belt. The water pump also needed to be replaced. The mechanic didn’t find any problem with the transmission. It cost me $580 for the repairs; a lot less than I was expecting to have to pay.