Time to sell it or fix it? 2002 SL2
 

Hi all. I'm a long time reader of this forum but never posted before. I wanted to tap into your advisement here. I've got a '02 SL2 that I've babied for a long time. My dad bought it when it was 3 years old, and now it's mine. My dad thinks it's time to get rid of it. I started having issues with the transmission. It did the classic jerk into reverse. I lived with that a bit but then it started jerking hard into 2nd and 3rd. I bought a new valve body from Rockauto and put it in. But even after driving it 40 miles it's shifting worse than ever before. It shifted so hard that it pulled the exhaust pipe from the cat converter. It's fairly rusted out so needs a new exhaust I guess.

I'm wondering if it's worth fixing up. I called a shop in town and they said if I changed out the valve body then it's the transmission. He quoted me 2300-2800 if he can find a used one with less miles on it. I'm guessing that I could find another used car for 3500 or so. I don't think anything else is wrong with my car. My dad and I have changed out a lot of parts over the years. Even the motormounts. Just looking for advice. Cee

Motor mounts are 70,000 mile wear parts on s cars.
All the aftermarket ones suck and you can't get OEM anymore.

Coolant temp sensors were a mess, suspension bushings dry out, exhausts rust out, rear sway bar links need replacing, front sway bar bushings need replacing when you can't replace the control arms without a 2 ft crowbar. O2 sensors have a fixed lifetime, front about 100 to 125,000 MI. Rear until it tells you your cat is below efficiency, which is usually that your O2 sensor in the rear is fouled.
Ignition coils once in awhile.
Radiator every so often.

Hopefully you have not had BCM issues. Only the third gen s cars had them.

All of the above is standard fare if you own an S car.

How many miles and how much oil does it use per 5000 miles?

On to the transmission.

There are a lot of crap rebuilt valve bodies out there on eBay. If you did not purchase one with sonnax solenoids, chances are it is crap. I say chances are, obviously I don't know. Did you check the resistance across all of them before installing?

Reverse slam is due to the input shaft nut coming loose. This can be fixed without removing the transmission. It is external to the transmission case. There are a billion posts on it. Make sure you use a new nut. If you use the old one it will likely just loosen again.

What is your automatic transmission fluid level and have you changed the fluid anytime recently?

Please post a resistance readings of each solenoid in your old valve body if you still have it but definitely in the new valve body. And whether you have Sonnax solenoids.

The auto trans on S Series cars is an absolute weak point.

2800 to replace your transmission? I can't see your post right now but I'm assuming that would be a rebuilt price.

I call bull****. A used transmission from an S car is probably $400. I don't know that rebuilding one would necessarily help.

And no one pays $3,500 for any S car unless it is a real wheel drive converted dragster. Maybe if it is in show condition and has been judged, but nobody wants one of those.

My 95 and 97 sc2s are maybe worth 400 and $800.

​about 2:50 on each each, 70k on rebuilt engine, the other one has a bad crank.

The only place I have seen ridiculous third gen S car prices are on dealer lots.

I can check the old valve body this weekend for the numbers. I just found out how to do that on the solenoids. I bought the valve body from rockauto and it said Sonnax rebuild on it.

The car doesn't use transmission fluid. A year ago, I had a tip from a mechanic to pull out a little at a time and replace with new fluid...but to not do a full change all at once. This was when the reverse started acting up every so often. I might use a little oil. It had used 1/2 quart every 2 months or so. It leaks even less now that I put in Rotella 5w40.

I was thinking the new valve body could be junk. I should have checked those solenoids before putting it in. That was stupid not do so before. I should have looked it up.

Right. I would not pay 3500 for another SL2. I was thinking of another car. Maybe a newer Mazda 3 or something.

Vehicle mileage pls.

RockAuto is pretty good at filtering out the nasty items and not selling them. But this could be a new vendor for them or who knows what.

Need approximate miles driven every few months to determine oil consumption per miles not time, please.

I'm assuming you meant it burns oil as opposed to leaking.

Have you ever checked engine compression?

Left to right on the old one...the solenoids check out at 4.3 on the line pressure and the rest are 5.7 and 5.8.

Probably a half a quart every 1200 miles