Any guesses as to the cause?

noway2

noway2

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So, the Scion (2009 xD > 340k miles) once again left me stranded on 15/501 and needed to be towed home. Was in gear, driving, engine started revving like it was in neutral and felt like it was coasting. Pulled into a turning lane, hoping to clear the road with momentum and get off the highway, but no dice. Manually put it in a lower gear and it went. Turned down a side street. It slipped again, revved, but then caught and drove. Turned into a driveway to turn around, indicator said reverse, it would only roll forward. Called tow truck after figuring out where I was.

In other words, slipped out of gear while under power in drive. Would go back into gear and out, no idea if manual selection of gear (automatic not stick) made a difference?

Simple fix or car go to scrap yard?
 
Scions are infamous for slipping from 5th to N, but it sounds like you might have more going on.

The 5th gear slip is very fixable.
 
The thing is, I just put a brand new battery in it this last weekend, but took it to the shop because it was corroded and after cleaning it off I went to loosen the bolt and it just bent the terminal. At least once it was cleaned off, I was able to charge it enough to start it. If it goes to the scrap yard, the new battery is coming out. :mad:

One way to look at it is that in one week to cost me a months car payment on my wife’s new car.
 
2ASteve said:
Are you getting any check engine light.??
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No code with this incident. A few weeks ago the check engine light came on and then went off after about 3 start / warm up cycles. The last time it stranded me it was intermittent coming on before failure but that was an igniter coil that broke. The linkage on the shifter broke a while back, but that was a 50 cent grommet, but ever since the shifter will sometimes not register and display the indicator, which will cause check engine, but that didn’t happen here and it was indicating correctly in all positions from Park to Low.

This time it was in drive, going probably 60 mph. It felt like it went to neutral in that giving it gas revved the engine harder but didn’t translate into perceptible delivered power but I would have thought if it were in neutral the RPM would have dropped and instead it went up to something like 4000 like it was in a low gear.
 
Rpm's going up when it stopped pulling is what I would expect. You took the load off the engine so it revved higher.

If your speed suddenly reduced then you may have gone into a lower gear and the engine revved higher, but it if felt like you were just coasting then no. It revved because the load was reduced.
 
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Was this in multiple gears or just a particular one?
 
Schattenreiter said:
Rpm's going up when it stopped pulling is what I would expect. You took the load off the engine so it revved higher.

If your speed suddenly reduced then you may have gone into a lower gear and the engine revved higher, but it if felt like you were just coasting then no. It revved because the load was reduced.
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Speed stayed the same and it felt like it was coasting.
 
Trans is toast.
At first I was thinking it could be similar to something that happened to a Saturn I owned in '97. In that case, it was a spline head weld failing on 1rst gear. The spline head was spinning on the shaft. Under warranty then.
But yours sounds like toasted old tranny syndrome. :D
 
I would check for codes anyway clear any.
There are possibly 7 solionds that operate the valve train on the unit assuming yours is a U241 E series unit.
You didn't say you here any noise, like whining.
Check the fluid, make sure it's warmed up and full, note if it has a burnt smell, color etc.
Since you got it home does it engage into gear? Forward and reverse? Pull at all in any range?
 
@2ASteve Interesting that you mentioned noise. I almost commented on it, because I had been thinking the car sounded a little different, especially when accelerating, but I have been driving other cars so dismissed it and I can't say with 100% certainty.

I got the car towed to a local garage that is about a mile from home and stopped in this morning and asked him to check it out. Those are good suggestions, too, thank you.

I haven't tried it since getting it to the garage, obviously, but it was engaging gears going forward at the end when I pulled into some guy's driveway with the intent to turn around. It wouldn't engage reverse, and I was too close to the car ahead of me to risk trying forward.
 
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