Shift Pointers
- Author: Wayne Colonna, Technical Editor
1998 to 2000 Kia Sportage and Sephia have the idle-air-control valve and the throttle-position sensor relatively close to each other. Figures 1 and 2 show the setup in the Sephia, which is similar to that in the Sportage.
With both connectors unplugged you can see in Figure 3 that they have the same configuration, making this an easy cross-connect. In two instances on our technical-hotline service here at ATSG, the vehicle came into the transmission shop from a general-repair facility with these connectors cross-connected and a complaint of no upshift. The transmission was stuck in first gear.
With the Sportage, the technician could make the vehicle shift by pushing the Hold button at 6,000 rpm. The scan tool would show that the TPS remained at 88.9% throttle opening regardless of throttle movement. So the TPS was replaced and, of course, there was no change. After a day or two between other things, the shop finally discovered the cross-connect problem.
Besides the fixed TPS reading observed on a scan tool, another quick way to identify this possibility of a cross-connect causing no upshift is the wire colors. For the Sephia, the TPS has blue/white, blue/orange and black/green wires going to it. The idle-air-control (IAC) valve has red/yellow, white/green and white/yellow wires. On a Sportage, the TPS has green/yellow, yellow/green and yellow/black wires, and the IAC valve has black/white, red/green and blue/red wires.
Another cross-connect scenario that still pops up on our tech line is with 1995 to 1998 01M transmissions. The problem actually begins on the bench, where the two speed sensors are placed into the case incorrectly. When the transmission is installed, the wires are plugged into the sensors cross-connected, causing the transmission to shift from first to second and second to neutral. The correct installation is to bolt the sensor with the black connector into the transmission toward the back and the one with the beige sensor toward the front (see Figure 4).
