Celica Forums General Discussion General Hesitation and shifting problem

CEL came on sometime last week so I scanned it and got a code for catalytic converter/emissions problem. Haven't had the time to get it looked at and I dont have the money for a new cat if thats the issue.

At the same time my car has had hesitation and loss of power. Any time i accelerate its very slow and unresponsive, especially when driving up the on-ramp to interstate. Car will surge after a 5 seconds of pushing the gas down even a little bit.

To top it off my (auto) transmission wont shift into 4th/overdrive. Disconnected my battery one day and the following day all of the sudden car will not shift. Usually in 3rd gear it will shift at 3000 rpm but the rpm's keep climbing. Im forced to drive on the interstate in 3rd gear at a constant 4000rpm. When at or above 3000rpm and i click the overdrive button on/off the rpm's move slightly and the car has a slight jolt as if its trying to shift. I dont hear grinding and it shifts into all other gears just fine.

I have changed the air filter, cleaned the MAF, and checked the injectors. Sparkplugs were changed recently (10K miles ago) but i will be checking them however i doubt that its that.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

(2000 GT 180K miles)

If it's a cat code, it needs a new cat. No way around it besides a cat delete with spacers or a high flow cat. A bad/clogged cat could cause your shifting issues as a sort of "limp mode" precaution. My brother had a bad cat on another car of his which eventually led to multiple misfires and a plethora of other issues. Do something about the cat. Your air filter and MAF do not matter if the cat is bad.

About a month ago i got a random multiple missfire code that i scanned however it didnt show up with a CEL. This cat code came after that. The cars previous owner ( family member) got an aftermarket cat put on although many people said not to because of CEL and other various reasons.

What cat would you recommend to me? A universal one from advanced auto for example (which is aftermarket i know)? Google isnt helping me very much.

Might be the MAF. Fixed power problems I had when my 03 GTS was throwing a code for a faulty throttle body. I had also tried cleaning the MAF to no avail; full replacement worked. But check your cat. If you can drop it for a test drive, do that. Also see if it is overheating to the point of glowing, which I imagine it would be if performance is severely impacted.