I just found this forum and I'm hoping I didn't find it too late. I just spent 1800.00 to repair a faulty transmission in my 98. The problem started with the same type of clunky shifting on cold mornings that others have complained of. That progressed to the trans not upshifting for a few minutes before finally shifting normally. This finally got so regular that I had to take it in. The check engine light would come on intermittently at first and then just stayed on. There was also some relationship to the Low Range switch as it would blink some times. One thing was certain. the clunking would ALWAYS indicate I was in for a nonupshift event.

The repair tech first charged me 1500 for a new trans ecu and a new conductor plate. He also changed the trans fluid. When I brought it home, it started doing the exact same thing again. The tech guy assured me it was just a programming issue.

Well he finally had to send it to the dealer who allegedly did some service bulletin upgrades that the tech guy said were necessary to reprogram the new transmission ecu. (At an additional cost of 300.00)

My question is this:

Did the dealer do all that was necessary to fix this? Was all the work and expense the tech guy did unecessary?

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.