When my 98 Explorer has been sitting and the engine is cooled off, and I drive down the road, if I press the gas too hard, it feels like the transmission "skips", meaning that the gear wont catch, and my engine revs, then a second later it catches again, and jerks real hard, like if I was putting it in neutral, flooring it, and back to drive. The weird thing is, it only does it when the engine is cold. Is there anything I should check??

98 XLT 4WD. Thanx

 

The transmission fluid level after you have driven 20 miles.

 

I have a similar problem w/ my 1997 V8 Explorer: When gently accelerating or stable highway cruise, it seems to want to shift, and has a problem, and gives me a rumble feeling. My work-around was to gently pump the accelerator, which seemed to lessen the problem.

I did check the fluid, but I'm even more confused...

Having never owned an automatic before, I'm not used to AT maintainence, so excuse the newbie question, but how should I properly measure the fluid? I noticed that the dipstick has two scales, hot, and cold. When hot (after 190 mile highway trip, while still running) there is almost no noticable fluid on the stick, so I assumed it's WAY low, but just for comparison, I let the car sit overnight, and checked against the "cold" side, and it looks fine. I decided to add some fluid (randomly picked 3/4 of a qt) and the truck runs a lot better, but still does it a little bit...

Now, it does it less, and I think I have isolated it to when the transmission tries to re-engage after coasting on the highway, and occasionally during a gentle up-shift at slow speeds, say after a stop sign. I can liken the feeling only to being similar to what it would feel like if a manual transmission clutch was popped and it hopped a couple times while everything stabilized. Sounds nasty..

Can anyone tell me what the PROPER way to measure the fluid is, and why I might have gotten two different readings?

Thanks!

-Steve