1993 Subaru, transmission

Well, I own a 1993 Impeza sedan 150,000 miles, A/T. I have put 40,000 miles on the car. About the time I bought it I noticed the transmission shifts ?hard? from 1st to 2nd, never slips, just hits hard and may sometimes hold first gear but never a slip or hesitation.



Now while driving down the road at a constant speed the car has a tendency to want to downshift out of O/D (jump in RPM?s) hold the higher RPM for a few seconds and drop to the original RPM. It will sometimes fluctuate this way for a long times, other times kick on and off during a road trip. It will only do this fluctuation above 50 MPH~. If we are driving into a hard wind it will want to kick down quite a bit also. Time of day/Temp does not seem to change these symptoms considerably.



I had my tranny fluid sucked out and replaced about 20,000 miles ago.



I am guessing it is either a plugged valve in the tranny or a bad kick down sensor. I know subbie A/T?s are not bomber, but I am hoping to milk two more years at least out of the beast (grad school).



A year ago I quite using my cruise control because it did this similar problem, are they any at all related?

quite, should be quit