BonjourKate
New member
Sorry this is a novel but I really need help!
About two months ago my '01 SR5 (with ~155k miles) started having some "hard" shifts usually between first and second gear and occasionally when downshifting. I had a mechanic replace all of my plugs and wires and he scared me into performing some routine maintenance (replaced belts, water pump, etc...). My car was running great until about two weeks ago when it occasionally became really hard for me to move my gear shifter. This doesn't happen all the time--maybe once or twice a week but it also started doing some hard shifting again but it wasn't nearly as bad as it was before all the work was performed. Convinced something still wasn't right, my dad suggested I drive up to his house (about 4 hours away) and take my car to his mechanic. They couldn't find anything wrong, said the occasional "hard" shifts were normal, and chalked up my paranoia to the other mechanic scaring me about the condition of my timing belt.
Fast forward to Friday morning when I leave for work and my RPM's shoot up to about 3500 and it won't go over 21mph. This lasted about 20 seconds and all of a sudden it jerked into gear and the rest of my ride to work was smooth and problem free. This has happened every time I've driven my car from a completely cold start. I've even tried warming it up for 5-10 minutes and that doesn't seem to help any.
I guess I want to know is this normal based on the age of my car (I read somewhere that some 4Runners experience this), what's causing it and what can be done to fix it?? I'm a girl who lives far from home and don't know many people in the area I live in. My 4Runner is my only form of transportation and I bought it expecting me to last for quite a while.
Thank you so much for your help and advice!!
About two months ago my '01 SR5 (with ~155k miles) started having some "hard" shifts usually between first and second gear and occasionally when downshifting. I had a mechanic replace all of my plugs and wires and he scared me into performing some routine maintenance (replaced belts, water pump, etc...). My car was running great until about two weeks ago when it occasionally became really hard for me to move my gear shifter. This doesn't happen all the time--maybe once or twice a week but it also started doing some hard shifting again but it wasn't nearly as bad as it was before all the work was performed. Convinced something still wasn't right, my dad suggested I drive up to his house (about 4 hours away) and take my car to his mechanic. They couldn't find anything wrong, said the occasional "hard" shifts were normal, and chalked up my paranoia to the other mechanic scaring me about the condition of my timing belt.
Fast forward to Friday morning when I leave for work and my RPM's shoot up to about 3500 and it won't go over 21mph. This lasted about 20 seconds and all of a sudden it jerked into gear and the rest of my ride to work was smooth and problem free. This has happened every time I've driven my car from a completely cold start. I've even tried warming it up for 5-10 minutes and that doesn't seem to help any.
I guess I want to know is this normal based on the age of my car (I read somewhere that some 4Runners experience this), what's causing it and what can be done to fix it?? I'm a girl who lives far from home and don't know many people in the area I live in. My 4Runner is my only form of transportation and I bought it expecting me to last for quite a while.
Thank you so much for your help and advice!!