SST Won't Shift Stuck in Gear
 

Recently, I've had "Service transmission soon" messages pop up on my dash. I started seeing them at the beginning of last week. Towards the end of the week the message changed to just "Service transmission" and something scary happened at the end of my daily commute. The car would not shift out of second gear. I was at a red, then merged onto the highway and neither the paddle shifters nor the shifter stick would change gear. I threw it over to auto, and it still wouldn't shift. It was both dangerous and frightening. I drive my car in S-Sport Manual always and have approximately 22,500 miles on my car.

I called up SSP and spoke with Chris, the head of the performance division. He seems to have pinpointed it to dirty transmission fluid and advised me to change the fluid and filter immediately. It was hard for him to diagnose over the phone. I live in New York and wouldn't be able to get to Texas to have them take a look in person.

I ordered 2 jugs of Diaqueen, and the paper filter from their website. Chris told me that the first fluid change should be done within 5,000-10,000 miles if the car was purchased new from a Mitsubishi dealer. He further explained that Mitsubishi dilutes the OEM brand fluid, Diaqueen, with regular transmission fluid which causes it to break down much faster than the recommended 30,000 mile interval change. I thought this whole time that 30,000 miles should be the first change, because both the dealer and manual explain doing so at that interval.

I really hope that this is the problem, and I trust Chris' expertise on the matter. Has anybody else ran into such a problem? Was it remedied by changing the fluid and filter?

I live in Canada, but have been told from my dealer that my evo's first tranny fluid change will be at 50,000km... So im not sure man, seems like a bunch of varying numbers.

My evo X MR is having the same issue. I am replacing the transmission fluid and filter @ 25k miles today. I spoke with Kris at SSP and he says that the dealerships extend this as much as possible. The filter breaks down quickly. Ive voided my warranty so I am doing all the maintenances.

Ill report back

Thanks. Let me know how it goes for you. Kris thinks that the Fluid and Filter were the cause of my issues as well. Here is a picture of the fluid after it was drained:

[IMG]Attachment 331303[/IMG]

did your car pull any code?

why would you drive in super sport everywhere...

No codes via EvoScan. I'm gonna get my hands on a real OBD and check freeze-frame data.

Because its less harsh on the SST than Normal or Sport.

I am ordering SSP's transmission fluid and steel filter. It appears that this is in-fact a heat / filth issue. Check your filter as it tends to get gunked up in dusty areas. I was monitoring my clutch heat and overall torque ratio via my Cobb AP. It appears that when it gets over 230ish it triggers this transmission failure. Allowing the car to cool for about 2 hours causes it to go away.

Unfortunately it took me voiding my warranty and becoming blacklisted from Mitsubishi @25k miles for me to find out. :/

230 degrees Fahrenheit?? I just did some SST logs and I'm getting the "Transmission Service Required" message without my clutch temp ever going above 91. I think its a dirt issue as well. I'm gonna do the mineral oil flush and change the filter and fluid again. I'll chalk up the money I spent on the first time to inexperience. Gonna do it right this time...

I have logs with SST readings but Apparently you can't upload the .csv files to this website so I reformatted to .txt and it didn't work, then tried .xml the old excel and that didn't work as well...

Are you sure you heard him right on this? I can't imagine that Kris would actually say this. Individual dealers may screw up on occasion, but Mitsubishi does NOT intentionally dilute the OEM fluid. EVER. It doesn't even make sense. The transmissions are known to be sensitive to proper fluid types, and to intentionally dilute the fluid would just cause a bunch of needless, and expensive warranty claims.

that's true huh because diluted fluid would cause the trans to fail, which Mits would have to warranty at a huge expense right?

Exactly.

I think it is reading 91 degrees Celsius (makes much more sense). If the tranny never got above 91 deg F you would never need a cooler ;) {thumbup}

I think that he must have misunderstood me about the mitsu fluid. The fluid becomes very contaminated and broken down when run for long periods of time.


Kris

How did this turn out? Did the flush fix your problem? Im at 25k kms idk i miles maybe 18 and was thinking of doing a change soon but ive only had it for a couple months and everything seems fine right now.