Jeep Grand Cherokee Transmission Lockup

Hello.

I've got a 1997 Grand Cherokee Limited with 65000 miles on it and I just started having a very strange problem. When backing out of the driveway in the morning, it has locked up and come to a screetching halt on the roadway. Both times I was backing into a turn, and both times it refused to back up until I shifted to drive, pulled forward a few feet and tried again. I'm sensitive to transmission problems as I regularly tow one or two of my horses to and from events, and the last thing I need is a few tons of horse blowing out the back of my trailer! Does anyone have any ideas on this one .. I will bring the Jeep in this week to the dealer, but I don't want to get bent.

Any help would be very much appreciated. I would suspect a bent or out of adjustment shift linkage. Reverse is close to park, so the trans may be slipping into park. Check the motor mounts too, especially the left one (driver's side). If the mount is broken the engine will left on that side and could be moving enough to move the selector into park. A bad trans mount might do the same thing, so check that too. It doesn't sound like a tranny problem, but if it keeps popping into park like that it could break the park pawl. Is this a 2 or 4 wheel drive ??


transman This is a big block 4x4 AWD. So far it only seems to happen in reverse and only when turning as I am backing out. I dropped it off at the dealer tonite, but would like to be armed with some ideas before I get pillaged tomorrow! Car Repair Talk's forum.