My experience with the CD4E, found in my 1998 Mercury Mystique
as been... well lets just say, "Hell!"!!
First a little
history... I was a mechanic for about the first 5 years out of high
school. I loved working on cars and learning new things, but one
thing I had not a single clue about was the transmission. They were
Greek to me and I really liked it that way. I never once had a
single interest in learning anything about transmissions. I guess
the reason why, would be that I was scared of them. Way too many
parts packed into such a small case for me. It was just mind numbing
for me to look at. Of all the cars I had purchased, before the
Mystique, I had not had any real major problems. I was always able
to handle anything that happened to them.
Not long after the
purchase of the Mystique (6 months, bought it used with 120k on the
odo), the differential went out. My fault actually! I was driving
way to hard on some back roads (dirt) and hit some mud. Great fun,
but when wheels started spinning up, from the lose of traction, I
heard a loud pop! I thought something had hit the bottom of the car
and did not think much about it. Later the next night, when I was
starting out on a 200 mile trect back home, I heard a grinding sound
outside my window. I could also feel the grinding in my shift
handle! My heart sank. Quickly the grinding got louder and it popped
out of "Drive". I was able to coast it off the road. Called a
wrecker and started weeping because I was broke! We asked the car
lot, that we bought the car from, if we could skip that months
payment so that we could use towards getting the tranny fixed. The
guys tells us that if we could get the car back up to where we live,
in NE MS, he could take it and get it fixed for us. No money out of
our pocket and he would not add it to our loan. Just make out a
promisary note that will be tacted on the end of the loan. That way,
we would not pay any finance charges on it. Way Cool! We jumped on
it!
We get the car back three weeks later with what
seemed to be a dead battery. Come to find out, the shop did not
install negative battery cable back to the tranny bell housing. I
relocated the negative battery cable to the tranny mount located on
the fender well. I still had to replace the battery though. They had
tried for three days to get the thing cranked and it killed the
battery. This was not a looking good at all. We were told that the
differential had went out, but they went ahead and did a full
rebuild of the unit anyway. After a few days, I start to notice
that, when cold, reverse would slip. We called the shop and they
would not talk to us. We were told to talk to car lot owner. So we
did! He said for us to bring it back up there and he would get it
taken care of. We explained that we had another trip to make, across
the state, and was unsure if the car would be ok. Being that it was
a Thursday, we knew that they would not have the car ready in one
day, so we made the trip. After about 100 miles, we slow down at a
stop sign. Everything seemed normal. We took off and everything
seemed alright as well. Then the car slams into 2nd gear! My wife
and I looked at each other. Then it slams into 3rd, followed quickly
by a nice slam into 4th! We pulled off at a store and I checked the
fluid and it seemed ok. Nice red color and no bubbles. We do what
most other families do at a store in the middle of nowhere, then
return to the car. Everything went smoothly for the rest of the 100
miles.
The next morning I go outside to take a closer look
at the car and notice two small pools of tranny fluid under the car.
I pop the hood to find that almost everything on the driverside of
the engine compartment is covered in a thin layer of ATF! I also
noticed that the dipstick was about a inch from being fully seated.
The exhaust hose, located on top of the valve body cover, was
leaking ATF out of it also. I was puzzled, to say the least. I went
back inside and called the car lot. They tell me that I need to get
it back up there ASAP! Well duh!! But I can't. At this point, I go
online to contour.org and check the tranny forum. I search and
search. Somehow, I don't remember what I read to make me think this,
I figured that the filter was clogged. To check and see, I would
have to drain some of the fluid out. I did and after straining it, I
found chunks and shards of metal in the fluid! There's my proof!!
Well, I drained out the 3.5 - 4 quarts out and put some new in. I do
this two times. I am left with a paper towel that is full of metal.
I placed the paper towel in a plastic bag throw it in the trunk. My
dad had a bottle of Lucas Oils Transmission Fix and I threw that in.
The car ran great the rest of the trip.
Once safely back
home, I find my way to this shop that did the work on my car. I was
going to confront them on this issue and see what could be done. I
was told that if I am finding metal in the fluid, then they will
have to rebuild the tranny and that would cost at least another
$950. Wait! You already rebuilt this... last week! The shop owner
tells me that they did not. They only replaced the differential.
When asked if they flushed the tranny and changed the filter, he
asked me, "Why would we do that?"! I pulled the plastic bag out of
my back pocket and showed it to him. He of course asked me what it
was. When I told him that came out of my transmission this weekend,
he said that I needed to talk to the car lot again. I told him that
I was going to talk to the car lot, because they did not work on my
car. He then asked me leave the property, which I then had to!
It took 3 months for me to get my car back into the shop.
When I got the car back, 2 weeks later, it felt like I was driving
against a brick wall. It made no sense at all! After getting the car
home, I tell my wife that they are never touching my car again.
Fixed, not fixed, it did not matter! It did not take too much
inspecting to find that the case gasket was leaking, as well as the
pump housing cover, a cooler line mount was cut in half, all sorts
of crap. My wife jumped back into the car and drives the car back up
to the car lot, since the shop wont talk to us. My wife begins to
show the lot owner what all was wrong with the car now and he
proceeds to shake his head. He explains how disappointed he was and
that he would make it right, somehow. He says that he will call the
shop and we tell him NO! We will not go back to that shop! Not
without a lawyer anyway!! He agrees to let us take it somewhere
else, anywhere we want, and have it fixed and he would pay for all
the repairs. Only thing was that we had to agree to pay him at least
half of the initial repair and wait a few months before we do
anything. We agreed.
During that time, I spent almost all my
spare time finding resources about the CD4E. Its problems, its
history, all its little quirk's, everything. I was not going to be
fooled again. Since then, I have learned that the shop did not make
any repairs to the car the last time it was in the shop. It changed
the entire tranny, but with an older unit. Much older actually! The
tranny that is in in the car now has a build date of "4/94". The
build date of my old (correct) tranny was "2/98". My first clue of
this, was when I did a good deal or research on the solenoid pack
and found it to be of the older variety. Upon closer inspection, I
was able verify this through the use of a tech publications,
"Gears". Keep in mind that there where lot of changes, for the
better, between 94 and now! All that, gone! The 94 tranny is OBD-I
and my old 98 model was OBD-II. Two different animals all together.
This was causing all sorts of issues.
I have since taken all
the knowledge that I have gained and used it to form a "plane of
attack", if you will, on getting my car back to the way it should
be. I took that knowledge and plan to several different shops and
talked with them each about it. One would not touch my transmission
all together, I caught one lying to me and the third was just plan
GOLD! They agreed with everything I wanted, then suggested even
more. They understood my quest and in some ways, actually embrased
it. They were happy to answer all my questions and explain certain
things to me.