my girlfriend's 2002 automatic shifter is not smooth.. shifter sometimes gets stuck in reverse, and slips out of D4. i emptied and filled the tranny fluid once, and the problem is still there. what should i do next? drain the fluid 2 more times to get it all out? it's not even that dark. thanks in advance.

 

Sounds like it might be the mechanism at the base of the shift lever itself. There's a spring & cam arrangement that helps provide the 'notches' you feel. Something loose or bent?

 

Unfortunately I've heard bad reps about the 6th gen (and 2003) automatics. I forget what the issue exactly was that they fixed in 2004. It was a "jet" something they added.

 

When it "slips out" of gear, is it the lever actually moving? Or the tranny just disengages? My answer was based on the lever actually moving around.

 

right, the lever moves around. so should i take out the entire housing surrounding the lever and see if anything looks bent? and just to make sure, the 2002 v4 automatic doesn't have any transmission fluid filter right? what about external linkages? check those as well?

 

The "linkage" consists of a cable shown here. Look for it being disconnected or something.

The main body of the shifter (#4) looks completely different from my '98, so you'll have to look to see what's up with it. My '98 was made from steel stampings bent, drilled, & spot-welded together. Now it all looks molded & plastic. Still, something down there might be broken.

The common horror-stories about tranny failures are not related to the actual shift lever moving around.