Hi all.
Back story:
I floored it on I-90 to get out of the way of some snappy lexus speeding up behind me with a driver on the phone. (I was next to a truck so couldn’t change lanes.) My gas pedal got stuck to the floor, so while I figured out what to do, I rode the brakes as hard as I could. My car is automatic but has 3rd, 2nd, and 1st gears, so I downshifted to 3rd while on the phone with the state police. After pumping the gas a few times, the pedal came unstuck and I had a relatively normal 2.5 hour drive to my home. This was about a month ago.
Problems:
Noise: Since then, my car has been making a noise that (thanks to mycarmakesnoise.com
) sounds something like a slipping transmission or a hole in the exhaust system; the noise is noticeable at just over 2000 rpm (about 2150 to my eye) and is more pronounced with acceleration.
Ride: It feels a little jerky around the point you’d want to change gears on a manual transmission.
MPG: The gas mileage has also changed: I’ve put about 700 miles on the car since “the incident” and she went from getting over 380 miles per tank to under 300 miles per tank.
Questions: (in increasing order of importance)
- Could it be as simple as burnt transmission fluid?
- How can I differentiate between an exhaust system problem and a transmission problem?
- What’s wrong with my poor baby?!