My favorite thing in the world. Transmission issues.As stated in the title, the car's my 1993 Maxima GXE.The car was stuck in third gear for a while tonight. But only for a while. After I turned the car off and restarted it, it went back to normal.

I have no idea at what point the car became stuck in third (I say third, which is merely a guess, because of where RPMs where and things. I doubt it was 2nd as I was doing 75 without overrevving. I know it wasn't fourth because I passed a guy at 50mph and had plenty of torque. I actually noted to myself that it was pulling a bit harder than normal at that speed. That's when I hit the overdrive switch--thinking it was turned off. It wasn't. Hitting the switch made no difference in rpms. Neither did moving the shifter to "1" or "2".

Then when I got off the freeway, I stopped at a light. When I started off--that's when I realized what was going on. It was stuck in (I'm guessing) third gear. Very sluggish, revving too high for the rate of acceleration.I hit maybe 3 or 4 more lights on the way to the office (where I figured I'd park and check things out since it wasn't far) and every time it was the same.

When I pulled into the parking lot I was careful to test that reverse was working before pulling into my spot. Reverse worked fine. But when I put it back in "D" (or "1" or "2") it stayed in 3rd.

So I parked, turned the car off, and started it again. The start sounded a LITTLE bit harsher than normal. But I probably only even noticed that because I was paying such close attantion to things at this point. I reversed out of the spot and put it in "D". This time it went into first as it should have. Since it was wet, I gave it a little "goose" and the tires spun. Definitely first gear.

I checked my trans fluid. It was right in the middle (a bit high for "cold" but a bit low for "hot"). The transaxle was not hot--I could remove the trans fluid dipstick with my bare hand--which I can almost never do without waiting for the car to cool a while. The fluid is still bright red--only has maybe 20k miles on it.

The transaxle was rebuilt at about 178k miles. The car now has 203k miles on it.

At no time did I ever see a CEL or any other dashboard indicator light up.

Any input on this would be appreciated--I was planning to drive this thing to the Phoenix meet this weekend--for which I leave thursday morning.

I need help with my 93 Maxima, Engine in top shape, but transmission issues. Gets stuck on 3rd gear, new transmission fluid but when overdrive is on sometimes runs smootly and climbing a slope looses power, when OD turned off, picks up. Transmission does not slip.
Can someone help point me to right direction to solve this issue

OD simply enables or disables 4th gear. So turning OD off at highway speeds will kick down into third gear, which will add hillclimbing power. The car should be shifting down on its own, though, before it gets to the point of noticable power loss. If you floor the throttle going uphill, does it still downshift a gear and get power?