T1N Transmission stuck in 1st gear

bazefiber

I love my van
Lurker on this forum. 2006 sprinter 2500. In the last 6 months the transmission has "quit shifting". Symptoms. Vehicle running fine. Suddenly, vehicle upshifts to 1st gear. I stopped the vehicle. turned off the ignition, turned back on, problem went away. Has happened 3 x in the last 6 months. 250K milage. Any Ideas?
 
Lurker on this forum. 2006 sprinter 2500. In the last 6 months the transmission has "quit shifting". Symptoms. Vehicle running fine. Suddenly, vehicle upshifts to 1st gear. I stopped the vehicle. turned off the ignition, turned back on, problem went away. Has happened 3 x in the last 6 months. 250K milage. Any Ideas?
Scan it for codes. Could be shifter communication error due to shifter going bad. Without a scan, you could spend a lot of money replacing things and not get it fixed. This Canbus stuff is complicated.

Barry

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Midwestdrifter

Engineer In Residence
Check the TCM for codes, lots of possibilities. Some minor, some major. Good news is its probably minor, as you can resume driving after a power cycle.
 

autostaretx

Erratic Member
Are you really sure it's First gear (and not 2nd)?

There are certain failure which should cause the transmission to:
(a) remain in whatever gear it's in
until you play with the shift lever, at which time it:
(b) shifts into 2nd gear and stays there. (you're also able to reach Reverse and Neutral/Park).
Those conditions are called "limp home mode" (you'll see LHM as a common acronym in the forum).

If it's truly 1st, then i'd suspect that the shift lever switch contacts are being triggered (so it thinks the handle is being continuously pressed to the left)... but that doesn't explain why it won't shift back up if you press the handle to the right.

The service manual is here: http://diysprinter.co.uk/reference/2006-VA-SM.pdf
and the transmission sub-manual is here: http://diysprinter.co.uk/reference/2006-VA-Transmission.pdf
(and lots of stuff is throughout http://diysprinter.co.uk/reference/ )

--dick
 

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