It happened to me. Took forever and a day for the dealer to finally be able to reproduce the fault. New tranny went in couple days later. They said something about not doing work on the internal parts of a tranny. The tranny was sent back to Jeep, and we later got a fault report back. Please forgive the very non-technical description here, but it is what the service manager, who is also head of sales, the secretary, and the janitor, told me. (Yeah, its a small dealership.) Apparently there is a ball bearing in the tranny somewhere that does something with first gear, and it is in a cage, but the cage is weak and has a tendency to break and then then ball bearing falls out and since the bearing doesn't seat anymore, it won't stay in first. I'm a mechanic, but trannys arn't my specialty. I just kinda said okay and let it go. I had a new tranny, and haven't had problems since. Hope that sheds some light on the situation.

 

Thanks. Any past expierences are welcome. They have ordered new parts for the tranny and if this does not fix it I am going to pursue the lemon law. This has been the biggest hassle as I am on my way to the dealer for about the 9th time this week. The parts will be in next week and I have had it with all this dancing around.

 

Hey yeah, I heard this suggestion as to the cause of the fault here a while ago but it's good to hear the official explanation lines up with what a few folk here with technical knowledge previously suggested. As well, once the bearing stops holding it in 1st properly, every time it jumps out it damages the gear set further, making it more likely to happen again and again, with the snowball effect of this ongoing damage & wear resulting in the Jeep ending up virtually undriveable.

My tranny's not too bad as I've babied it from new because of these and other known issues (ie: premature clutch failure), but it still feels like it's from an old clunker with 200K miles on it and not a near new, low mileage vehicle. I've also been babying the motor (ie: letting it completely warm up with the oil also at operating temperature before putting it under load or taking the RPMs above 1500) due to the spun bearing at 40K miles thing but am not confident that this alone will guarantee reasonable operating life of the motor.

On the spun bearing thing, has anyone looked at the link between bearing failure (which is caused by lack of oil pressure and thus lubrication of the crankshaft) and the known issue with dry starts caused by the oil filter draining of oil when left standing for a while. Having the motor run without oil pressure on startup for a few seconds each time has got to be causing damage, no?

 

Yeah it happened to me too. Thought I was seated in first, had lots of time to get out from the stop sign with traffic coming, let out the clutch and started going and then BANG! she popped out of gear and left me sitting there in front of traffic. Hurt my arm and shoulder.

You sure get your shite together and get out of the way. This leaves you with a shaken feeling and wonder WTF just happened. Now that I see it on here I will watch for it and make sure I take it back to the dealer. I'd hate to be wheeling and that happen while on a climb!

Stratman2 - Nice Rig!

 

I have had this happen too. It usually happens when coming from rev to first. But i found if i when to 2nd then 1st it seats it and does not pop out. Hope it helps

 

update: my jk has been in the shop and tomorrow after FOREVER without a vehicle it should be ready... they are doing the 1st gear snycons thing? and when i called today they said they were having trouble getting the parts hot enough to install..
can anyone in English describe what they are doing so i have a clue when i talk to them
thax a bunch

 

I can tell you that this is the fix I had done and have not a problem for going on 5 months now. I think they got it right with the revised TSB which called for replacing the 1st/2nd syncro. also I believe the 1st gear itself. Something about the back taper on the gear wasn't cut to the proper angle or deep enough. Bad news is you're going from a German built tranny to one that now has Mexican made parts in it. As far as heating the parts, that is done to cause the gear to expand in order to get it in place. As it cools down, it shrinks back to size and "seizes" in place.

Not the best description, but it will do and give you some idea as to what is going on.

PS. They knew you would be back after cutting the inner boot. That won't fix the problem, but I believe Chrysler required it be attempted per TSB BEFORE new parts installed.

 

So what do us poor bastards do that are out of warranty. I'm surprised I havn't been rearended yet when this happens. I really do love the jeep, but am amazed at all the quality issues I've had with it. Shame on you Chrysler.

 

I've experienced this problem ever since I installed my 1 1/4" body lift from Rough Country. I even went as far as to install the adapter kit for the shifter so I wouldn't have to cut the inner boot to get into 2nd & 4th gear. Now it seems the problem is going the other way with the inner boot except that it only ever happens from 1st gear. Any thoughts on how to fix this. Is anyone else experiencing this issue with the Rough Country body lift?

 

Happened to me just this weekend while engaged in a climb at Rocktoberfest. Wasn't cool at all. Not only scared the s$%t out of me at the time but made for some interesting fast acting driving skills.