Thanks!
Here are some pictures. My mother just had a min-stroke in PA, so I may come up this week anyway. If I get this thing on a truck on Tuesday, I assume it would be there Wednesday, and you think I could be driving back Friday?

Thank you both for this info and help. It seems like a reasonable price and I'm really gonna think about it. I love my kizashi, but I am hurting from good old medical bills. So, there's no chance it could be more than that if something else were the issue? Also, I'm not sure where the oil leak is co...

That seems sorta risky, right? How can I be sure it will cost that much if I don't know what'd wrong?

Any idea who I could take it to down my way more to get a reasonable quote. The guy at aamco said they would just get a new transmission.

automatic
I don't know. There is oil all over the engine.
I'm in Charlotte NC

108,000 miles SLS. This car has been good to me, but the past few days it started shifting hard and now it won't get out of first or second gear and when I open the hood it's smoking. The engine light comes on but no codes pop up. Right when it started happening I took it to aamco and the guy said i...