Major Shift Problem (2000 3.0) Need Help

[MikeShepard505]

About a month ago my automatic transmission on my 3.0 started having problems shifting and now it’s happening more often. During the cold weather and turning it on and putting it into Drive it wouldn’t go into drive immediately, took 10-30seconds sometimes or if I gave it gas it'd bang into 1st gear if the rpms were high enough. And just getting it into drive wasn’t the end of the problems. When coming to complete stops it’d downshift like it should but it’d go all the way into neutral (truck rolls back on an incline when this happens) and wouldn’t go back into drive for another few seconds. Sometimes being stuck at a light when it went green or taking it slow from the get go and it would go into neutral and still giving it gas sending the rpm’s way up before realizing it and it’d banging into 1st. The problem all but goes away once the truck is warm and driven around. My transmission fluid was getting low and I’ve brought it back to a good level but the problem is still persistent when the truck has been sitting cold for a while. I’m looking at getting a full service on the transmission soon. The truck is 22 years old and I’m sure has many problems internally with the age so just listening to the transmission guy tell me it needs to be fully rebuilt or replaced isn’t gonna cut it, not spending thousands on old ranger so I want to get a good idea on the potential problem(s) and if it’s time to get a newer vehicle. I can’t be the only one with this problem as the same set of problems happening everyday could be limited to a single thing causing the truck to do this. Need some advice here, trucks at 175k miles for reference.

 

[Uncle Gump]

I just moved this to the transmission forum fot better looks.

At 175k... it's probably just time.