First post...great site
I recently purchased a well maintained 318ti for my daughter. 120K miles, auto, immaculate inside and out. I picked it up in Miami and drove it 972 miles home in 13 1/4 hours. A great little car that suprised me with its comfort and economy.
In an effort to make sure it would continue to be reliable I serviced it with all fluid changes, belts, plugs, atf/filter/gaslets, etc.
Now that the tranyy fluid is fresh it shifts hard, especially on the down shift to 1st when coming to a halt. It seems to "short shift" and go in to each higher gear at too low an rpm range. When you depress the accelerator to go into passing gear, it wants to shift all the way back to 1st regardless of the speed you're travelling but then immediately upshifts through the gears.
In "manual" mode it shifts up and down fine with positive engagement and no slipping. However it still goes into the gears pretty hard.
The CEL came on as well as the tranny "(!)" warning light. The cel code reads 1274 (pressure control solenoid). I talked to the dealer parts/service department and they were somewhat suprised as this part rarely fails and as evidence it is not even stocked by any dealers...must come from germany.
Someone has suggested it may be an improper (low) fluid level causing this problem. Logic (HA!) tells me if it were low it would be more likely to slip rather than engage harshly, but what do I know?
Sorry for the long post...any ideas?
Thanks
Jim