Hi there, I have a related issue: 2004 Xterra SC. Purchased last fall and driven very little since then (son's vehicle, driven to high school and soccer practice and not much more). Transmission started slipping about 3 weeks ago. It was throwing a TCC intermittent solenoid code. After resetting the code it seemed to drive normal on a 3-mile trip to the store. Yes! On the drive home it seemed to be slipping again. Noooo!
Here's the relevant info:
1. Vehicle has 133K on it, and as far as I know the previous owner didn't maintain properly. So probably no tranny service.
2. Drained pan and replaced ~1 gallon of fluid. Fluid was dark, but not sure I'd call it black. More like brown. After replacing 1G it was a lighter brown. Burt odor? IDK. Not enough experience to know if it's really burnt-smelling. Also added a pint of Trans-X.
No improvement in slipping problem.
3. Drained pan, dropped pan, replaced filter, checked TCC solenoid (14.4 Ohms, and it seemed to work fine when I applied 12V; nice solid click, with no indication of dragging or sticking). Cleaned magnet (I had never seen one before, and it looked like the underside of a mushroom, and felt squishy, like a sponge! I realized it was metal filings when some of the goop I pulled out stuck to a different magnet. There were no big pieces, just lots of tiny strands held together in a big blob by the fluid and magnetism) Installed new filter, reinstalled pan, refilled with new ATF. No improvement.
4. Seemingly important and telling info: The slippage occurs in D, but not in 1 or 2. In other words, in Drive it starts to slip in 2nd gear after reaching ~3k RPM, but if I drop it into 2 there's no slippage. This would seem to point to a problem with the TCM or ECM or harness.
Any thoughts? The transmission folks I've talked to seem to dismiss the weird behavior in
#4 , but nobody has offered an explanation. Everybody just tells me it needs an overhaul/rebuild, and maybe it does, but is it possible it just needs a TCM, or maybe there's an issue with the harness?
Thanks!
Sam