On Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:28:43 -0600, Don Foreman
wrote:

Brought my '95 Ford Contour, the Green Bean (it's shaped like a jelly
bean) to North Country Ford for some repair work. It runs rough
when I poke it hard, stutters and hesitates. They've got all those
fancy computers and ah don't know whut all, right? It must be a
really good computer because they charge $119 just to hook the dang
thing up. But I like the Ford dealer because they've always
treated us fairly and I did *not* want the experience of going to
Abdul's Fairly Decent Auto Repair and paying him interminably to
blindly try things that don't help.

Hokay, so they had the car yesterday, overnight and some today,
called around midday to say it was ready. We went to fetch it. Mary
dropped me off and then went shopping or something. I wrote a check
for $906, collected my car and left. Once on the somewhat rural road,
I poked it hard. It's better than it was, but it definitely is not
fixed. I popped a U and went right back. Told Brad the service
advisor that it isn't fixed. He called the lead technician who would
take it for a ride. I jumped in because I wanted to make sure he'd
experience what I had. Once out on the road he accelerated gently,
as one might do with a senior customer in the right seat of his car.
Wouldn't wanna rattle the old fella and scramble his pacemaker or
something, right? If he only knew.... my implanted device is not a
mere ****ant pacemaker, it packs 750 volts of POW. But he didn't even
know I'm packing one. It's a very concealed carry.

I mentioned that the problem occurs under conditions of low engine
vacuum, as with wide-open throttle whilst in perhaps one gear higher
than might be optimal for present speed. Mm! He tried a little of
that. Oh yeah, there was some hesitation and missing. He popped a U
at the same place I had, but he went into the rather extensive (and
nearly all vacant) parkinglot of a big furniture store.
He apparently was no longer worried about having a Nervous Nellie in
the right seat because he proceeded to put my good ole Green Bean thru
its paces. There were a coupla times I wondered if he was gonna
brake in time, steer in time or hit a bigass snowdrift. Fortunately,
I am not a nervous passenger. Hell, it was fun! But then, I even
think this would be a fun ride:
http://tinyurl.com/bca97r

I've hit this, too. The insurance company doesn't allow the
dealership employees to drive the car aggressively, just in case they
get in an accident with a customer's car. Or the Owner tells them not
to, same liability concerns.

But you were there to approve and cajole him into romping on it, so
they did, and the problem revealed itself.

For the Dorf Van, they tried saying No Trouble Found. I had to say
"Get in the passenger seat and just watch, I'll drive" then I got on
the freeway and romped on it and showed them the mis-shift problem.

There isn't supposed to be a one second pause in the 2-3 upshift
under modertate throttle, with an RPM zing and a slam into gear...
"Want me to do it harder? I can probably break a U-joint if I stay on
the gas..."

(Hey, I learned on a Powerglide, and it would hold first as long as
you kept the loud pedal down, and upshift when you feathered the gas
and the modulator told it to. So feathering the gas to ease the shift
was second nature...)

Results: Brand new transmission at 8K Miles.

-- Bruce --