Hi, I am a 32 year old womanwho knows nothing about cars so please excuse me if myterminology is off. My 2003 Ford Explorer (automatic) has the following problems:

1. Difficult tomove gear shift to Park, kind of have to force it up.
2. Truck shudders/knocks when I accelerateat certain levels.
3. Truck shudders/stall sometimes when in reverse.
4. Truck shudders sometimes when turning the wheel.
5. Truck shakes when idling (just started last night).

All but #5 have been going on for a couple of months but are getting worse. I haven't had the money to take it in but am afraid I am doing irreversible damage by continuing to drive it.

Every time I go to the dealership I never leave for under $700, even if I just go in for an oil change. They always seem to find things I absolutely must have done right away, so I fear I'm an easy mark. Can someone please help and let me know whatthese problems might be? They want $150 just to check out the transmission to see what the problem could be.

Thank you!!!

 

The gear shift problem is common. I had this on my 2003 and the dealer changed out some kind of switch on the steering column that fixed it. I think there is a TSB on this situation.

As for the other items....a tuneup maybe? Maybe some bad gas?

 

for numbers 2-5 on your list it sounds like you may need some new oxygen sensors for one thing... along with a new air filter and spark plug and wire change. this should solve your problem and give you better gas mileage.

 

I would start easy and check the transmission fluid while it's warm and idling in Park.

 

I heard that, I've had most of those problems as well, turns out it was my tranny failing on me... The only reason I knew enough to get a warranty on my new transmission was because of Carcomplaints.com. There were all of these other people who had them replaced only to have transmission failure not even 30,000 miles later..Holy CRAP!! They (carcomplaints) wrote back to me and let me know that I wasn't alone and that I should definitley get a warranty, thank God I did! It was an incredibly helpfull experiance! I was also able to read about the average costs and the the typical number of miles that most of the transmissions were failing at. It looked like it was most common amongs 99-2004 models.