4eat turbo legacy problem going into gear

[zeke]

been a while since ive been on here since my bj wagon got t boned i just picked up a 91 legacy ss with the auto trans and when you put the car into gear forward or reverse it acts like neutral until you blip the throttle then jerks into gear the car has 208000 miles on it with and came with all the service records and this car has been very well maintained the transmission had the fluid and filter changed about 10000 miles ago once the car is moving it shifts though every other gear just fine and when it downshifts back to first when you stop it jerks but not as bad as when you first put it into gear (doesnt act like it is in neutral almost like its trying to start in second even when you lock it into first) not sure if this torque converter problem or maybe a shift solenoid any help would be appreciated

[Legacy777]

Does it act like it's in neutral and only happen when you first start it up? If you drive the car and say go into the store and come back, does it act like it's in neutral again when go from park to reverse or forward? If not, I suspect the issue is a little check valve that keeps fluid in the torque converter has gone bad.

What is happening is that when the valve is bad, over time fluid is draining out of the torque converter. When you first start the car up, it has to pump fluid back into the torque converter. You can try testing this theory by letting the car warm up a little longer before putting it into gear and see if you notice the same issue.

Unfortunately this is a somewhat common failure point with an auto that has a lot of miles on it. Short of rebuilding it or possibly just the valve body, it's not worth messing with.

[zeke]

The problem is nonexistence when the car is cold once at operating temps it kicks hard if you take it out of gear and put it back into gear what I have been doing is just tapping the throttle really fast and it will engage the gear then drive just like its supposed to seems to be worst in reverse I was thinking it might have something to do with the torque converter I was reading about a guy with a forester with the same problem as me and he put a seafoam transmission treatment in it and it fixed his problem but I'm really skeptical about oil additives I have used seafoam through the brake booster vacuum hose before on my old Subaru but it didn't seem to do anything or my upper intake just wasn't that dirty

[Legacy777]

You could try the seafoam transmission treatment and see if it helps. I think your other alternatives are to continue driving it like it is or have a shop look at it, tear it down.