The Game Of Blame | Car Component Suspects Typically Blamed When The Transmission Is Guilty

Posted on: 25 March 2015

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The last thing any car owner wants to hear from the mechanic is that there is a possibility their transmission has seen better days. This is because transmission demise can rank right up there with an engine failure when it comes to the complexity of the repair, and the price is also sometimes hard to swallow. Because car owners rarely want to hear of such a problem, they will often wrongly accuse other vehicle components entirely. Here are a few car components that will often be found at the wrong end of a pointed finger when the transmission is actually to blame.

Evidence: A constant miss during acceleration.

Suspect: Plugs and/or plug wires.

Real Guilty Component: When the plugs are bad or the wires are damaged, the vehicle's engine can misfire and cause a miss. The only thing is, this kind of miss is usually more of a random thing. When the transmission is causing what feels like a miss, it will usually happen consistently when the vehicle is accelerating, but also when it is changing gears.

Evidence: Stalling when the gear is shifted from park into reverse or drive.

Suspect: Fuel filter or fuel lines.

Real Guilty Component: It is easy to blame some component of the fuel system when this happens because stalling does happen when there are fuel filter and line problems. However, the real criminal is more likely the transmission. If you are having issues with stalling when you change gears manually, whether with an automatic or manual transmission type, it is a sign that the gears inside are starting to wear down dramatically.

Evidence: Lack of power when traveling up steep inclines or a complete stall-out.

Suspect: Bad fuel

Real Guilty Component: The torque conversion system in the transmission is likely starting to fail. The torque converter is responsible for translating engine power to drive train power. When it starts to fail, the car will seem to have difficulty making it up inclines and rises, even if they are slight. Even though bad fuel could cause an engine to stall during a climb, it would not be to a such a high degree.

Before you waste your time and money prosecuting car parts that are really innocent, make sure you take some time to consider the fact that transmission failure can be a sneaky suspect, but is often the guilty party. Stop in a transmission repair shop like S & A Transmission to get the lowdown on the evidence and find out whether the transmission is the problem.