SPLATT2001

I have an 01 Mustang Standard Coupe with auto transmission. It's always run a little rough and gotten poor gas mileage.

But a while ago, I started having problems with the clutch. It started to become more difficult to shift. So I checked the tranny fluid. It was a little low, so I filled it. It didn't really seem to help that much.

Eventually I started having to jiggle the clutch to get it into gear. I would have to go down past the gear I wanted and then bring it back up. This problem just got worse until last Friday when I had a much harder time then usual to get it into reverse. Finally, I was able to back up onto the street. But it refused to go into drive. The only gear I had was reverse! If you dropped the stick to drive it would go in reverse. If you pulled the stick down to 2nd or 1st, it would refuse to lock in. There was an incredible amount of tension on the stick as soon as I would let go of it, it would snap back up into drive. I went back inside as it was too late for a garage.

I came back out an hour or so later and it seemed much better. I was able to put it in drive and went home. I know this sounds strange, but for the entire weekend it did this. Sometimes when I put the car in park it would be useless for an hour or so. Sometimes it was fine.

Finally, Sunday night I stopped at a friend's house. Put it in park(obviously) and went inside for a minute. When I came out the only gear I had was reverse. For a while I couldn't even get it into park.

Now there is a check engine light and the stick wont lock into anything except drive which now appears to actually be neutral. Outside of that, the stick moves up and down freely-as though it is connected to nothing. There is NO tension on it.

Which brings me to my question. I can't really afford the outrageous dealership prices ($70/hour). And they haven't been able to fix any of my problems while it was under warranty.
I have a mechanic who is very reasonable but he doesn't have of the fancy computerized diagnostic equipment like they have at the dealership.

Does this seem like a fairly easy problem to diagnose? As I see it, my options are:

1) Have it towed to the dealership and pay for a diagnosis and then let the more resonable mechanic do the work.

2) Bring it to the dealership and let them fix it.

3) Bring it straight to the reasonable mechanic and let him fix it.

What would be the best option? Any advice or opinions on what is the likely problem would be much appreciated. My completely uneducated guess is that the tranny **** the bed. Even though the car only has 30k miles on it Not too happy with Ford right now. Next summer, I'm going to sell it.

Thanks guys.

Chopper

It could be something as simple as a shift cable adjustment.Try the cheap things first.