General Automatic tranny question

[Stormhammer]

okay - say youhave an older car ( 1988 to be exact ) and its in Park and you go and put it into Reverse, it does a kidna pause then you hear a big CLUNK! Why is that? UV joint?

[Turbodude06]

sounds like the tranny is going out or you don't have enough fluid in it..

[§treet_§peed]

^ good point.... could be a stalled tranny as well, could possibley get it rebuilt, but eh...flywheel could be chipped and/or broken a little...could be a lot of different things bro

[Stormhammer]

hmm, I was thinkin about fluid. Just checkin ahead of time cause I'm about to bring a BMW to a mechanic to get it checked out ( this is a car I'm looking into buying )

[Mpatient]

Most likely fluid, but it could be a dirty tranny filter also. does it do it in the other gears as well or just reverse???

[Stormhammer]

trannies have a filter??? When was this?!

[Z U L8R]

auto trannies have filters, honda's we just drain and fill though. bmw's typically have gm transmissions, some of them have a green sticker that says LIFETIME FLUID and they don't recommend you change it, we have before it's just regular dexron/mercon 3. definately sounds like it's taking a long time for the shift solenoid to enguage with the source what they said low on fluid or dirty filter. more than likely even if you isolate the problem....unless it's a tranny mount which still wouldn't make it take a second to enguage in reverse...it sounds like that trannies on it's way out the door, so see what a replacement's gonna cost before you shell out the cash for this car with problems in half of the powertrain.