Tranny lock and unlock

[tardboy21]

I recently got a 99 and have a little annoyance when riding down the highway. Shifting through the gears seems to be ok under normal acceleration, but when cruising at any speed, every 10 seconds (give or take) it feels like the torque converter will start to unlock and then lock again. The rpms will rise about 150 and then go back down again. If I stay slightly picking up speed, it usually does not unlock.
Also, under slow acceleration it feels like the it may lock to early.

Fluid smelled fine, but as a precaution I put a tranny cooler on it (6 row) right away. I put a tad bit more tranny fluid in it and it is at the proper level. The amount of fluid I added did not seem like it would fill the tranny cooler lines and the little bit lost disconnecting the lines. Could there be an air bubble stuck in there? Would running to cold cause this?

I had only driven the car twice before this, and would not be able to say for certain that it was not already like this since the rise in RPMs is so slight. Any ideas or experiences that may help?

 

[Mr Anonymous]

Shut the climate control off and it will go away.

It does it automatically when the A/C clutch engages and disengages.

It's more pronounced on some cars than others, but they all do it unless you buy a tuner to make it go away, or learn to live without climate control.

 

[tardboy21]

I see. I believe it does it even when climate control is off. I will have to double check later this afternoon.

 

[stephen newberg]

Chris is right, that is what it will be. You likely need to go to the vent setting to test without it coming on via the climate control system. It bothered me for a couple of years when the car was new and then it went over to almost unnoticeable, though I can still see it on the tach and just barely feel it. I think the shift to less obvious happened at about 65,000 miles or so. The clock is now well north of 185K, so it was not the TC dying, but might have just been wearing in. Regardless, Chris is also right that you either ignore it or you can buy a tune chip to get rid of it.

pax, smn