1998 Pontiac Grand Prix GT
Engine Size : 3800 V6
Question : While driving down the road the SRS Air Bag light will start to blink, the RPM's will go up and I loose 4th gear. When I then come to stop and go to take off again, 1st gear is gone and it is identical to starting off in second gear of a manual transmission...
it drags until the RPM's climb to where they should be in second gear. This problem is not consistent and seems to happen out of the blue. I could go for a week or two and it does not happen but it could happen several times in one day. Have you seen this before? Any comments?
Answer: Sounds like you have an electrical issue that is causing your problem, like a wiring harness that is rubbed through and acting up under certain driving conditions. Normally the air bag light has nothing to do with transmission shifting, so that leads me to believe that you have an electrical problem. Possible ignition switch, since that feeds power to many of the cars systems, including the transmission and airbag. The best way to find your issue is to try and get the car to act up multiple times where you might be able to locate your problem. While driving the car, pay attention to when it does act up and note the conditions, like speed, engine temperature, what gear you were in, etc. Try and duplicate those conditions to try and get the car to act up again.
If you can replicate that, and get the problem to occur on command, that will greatly help in finding the problem. You'll want to check all the wiring harnesses inside the engine compartment, and look for those that could be rubbing on something, such as the transmission, an engine bracket, the sub frame, etc. Pulling on the harnesses might help too. If you can scan the computer code to see if there any codes stored in the system, that will help too.
