on an off note, is the shifter on a s4 different from an s5?
i bought a short shifter from a part out for 20 bucks, pulled it from an s4. tried installing it on my s5 but the ball on the bottom of the shifter seemed smaller than my stock one and it was ridiculously hard to shift as well.
anybody have any knowledge on this subject?

 

Yes, thank you. I actually found that exact link in another thread while I was originally trying to figure out what was going on with my transmission. The trans that was in the car when we bought it never had this issue. We bought the car with the engine at about 50K miles and the trans on about 40K miles. We actually drove it for a year and a half. We took it from GA to TX and back once, and GA to Cincinnati and back. Never any problems. Then from GA to Minneapolis and on it's way back is when the transmission blew up due to hot exhaust blowing directly on it from a blown exhaust gasket.

We swap it with this transmission (miles unknown) and we drive it light for a month and it's stuck in reverse. I found these threads and fixed it. Then I drove it for about 300 miles and suddenly I'm stuck again. Not even 20 miles later it TRIED to get stuck again on me. But as I started the car back up and tried to drive it in reverse for a spot to jack the car on stands, the transmission gears slipped and it corrected itself; I was never able to go anywhere when it did this...the gears just seemed to spin on their own and the lever slid back where it belonged.

I'm just trying to figure out why this transmission is doing this as often as it is. I am considering pulling the shift components from the old trans (condition permitting) and installing them in the current trans.