Hello, just joined. I've had my 03 For 3 years, and my Father had It 3 before me. Sitting at 378k miles and just now had a major failure. I'm looking for information anyone might have on the transmission and what could be broken inside and what all to replace when I pull to rebuild.

For further context, it's had a take off growl the entire time we had it, just sometimes worse than others and a high rpm slip. 2 years ago the radiator failed internally allowing coolant to mix with trans fluid, I replaced and flushed system and to my amazement the trans didn't show any signs of any further issues from it and I had driven it a couple hundreds miles a month since then. Recently I started a new job in a neighboring city and was using the car for daily commute when the trans failed. There was no warning sign or problems, I was just coasting before applying brakes to a red light, heard a light "pop" and then the rpm dropped to idle and I had 4 neutrals. Park still engages, so I've eliminated a diff failure. I'm leaning towards the cvt band broken or I've also read about some spline shaft that may strip. Really looking for anyone that I can talk with that knows this transmission and can lead me in the right direction.

 

Yep. sheared drive spline on the flywheel or broken CVT belt.

My '03 did the same thing at 202K except there was absolutely no "event" ... no "pop"... let off throttle while coasting, when i gave it gas again, it just revved. 4 neutrals as well.

I just sold it as a project for $400.

Not sure it can be done without engine removal, but if you can drop the CVT pan, I expect you'll see belt chunks in there if it failed.