My 2003 (stock tranny) 3500 SRW with 94K on her and has been runnin' fine.
Last night, I noticed that the gear indicator lights for R, D, 2, 1 not working, but P and N work ok. Then I noticed it was in 3rd gear limp-mode and not tossing any codes. I suspect the pressure transducer and/or governor solenoid, but not getting codes has me wondering.
Anyone got any idea what might be going on here?
Thanks,
LJ

 

UPDATE: Well, it wasn't the pressure sensor/governor solenoid (didn't think it would be with no codes present). Either I have "shot" transmission or the PCM is bad. Need to narrow it down somehow. Any suggestions, guys?
Thanks.

 

Update #2: Took it to the dealer shop and they wanted me to authorize about a $3000 repair bill to pull the tranny and completely rebuild it.
I decided not to let them do that and limped it back home to my shop tonight. On the recommendation of an another owner on another forum, I printed out the circuitry from the service manual and started checking fuses (#5 and #50) along with the transmission relay #59. Fuses were good and the relay was good, but just for giggles, I decided to take the man's recommendation and jumper that relay which, in essence, bypasses the PCM. Low and Behold!!! Everything came back to life!!! I have power to the coil of that relay (pin #86) so it must be the ground going back at the PCM. Could be the plug is not in all the way, corrosion or maybe some moisture around that particular pin in the connector...who knows. It was too late for me to mess anymore with it tonight, but I'll trace it out later in the week.
I'll sleep better tonight knowing my $3K is still in MY bank account.....geez.

 

Gota love not giving $3000.00 to the dealer (or any shop for that matter) for not trouble shooting.

Glad you got it figured out.

 

UPDATE #3:
Been outta town for awhile and just go back to working on this thing.
I replaced the transmission gear sensor and still have the problem. I'm now definitely thinking PCM. Tomorrow, I'm gonna go back over the truck and looked for any cut/chafed wires just to make sure everything is ok before I shell out for a PCM.

 

Way to go! I had a bad tranny but it would only shift bad when I was hauling my 5er. it would go into limp mode after a long trip and finally it gave a bad seliniod code and I had it looked at and my clutch plates and tc were shot! dealer rebuilt tranny under warranty. now it shifts better than it ever did. Im glad you looked in to it and saved yourself some $$$

 

any updates on how you fixed this, I am having the same issue.

 

This may be a dumb question but what exactly are the symtoms of " limp mode"? I was driving mine this morning and it acted like it slipped into neutral. I could mash the pedal and it would rev up but not move. I stopped and took off again and it did not want to shift to second gear. When I let off the accelerator and reapplied it everything went back to normal. No problems since then.

Just wondered if this was related.

thanks
Dave

 

I had same problem with my '03. It was intermittent, until last leg of trip and then when I finally got it to shift to OD I kept the pedal down for 400 miles until I got home. Took it to Dodge Dealer and after a week with their shop and Chrysler engineer I was told it was a broken wire in the wiring harnes from the engine computer to the trans computer. They jumpered it out and it's been working fine ever since. No new cable could be purchased. Seems they don't have a surplus supply of them laying at parts depots. Chrysler had a recall on this cable when it was new. Seems some of them came from the factory w/o enough goop on the connection ends to keep out water. Water gets in and corrodes the cable. Had hell with dealer since he said it was okay when I took it back while it was still in warranty. It was out of warranty when trouble occurred. Good luck.

 

Just fixed mine, it was some fuse that was blown. Went through all the wiring & grounds just to find a blown fuse.

 

I traced mine back along the ground wire going to the pcm. I found that I have an open ground inside the pcm.
I just cut that ground wire between the relay box and the pcm ground, taped up the pcm end and ran the relay end to the pass. side battery negative terminal. Been working fine for the last 30K+ miles but I probably should replace the pcm and associated harness eventually.