Transmission issue troubleshooting
 

I am helping a friend of mine on her 2006 Mazda Tribute that is experiencing transmission problems.

The car has about 98k miles on it and looking under the hood, it doesn't appear an amateur has ever done work on it. Everything looks clean and no area looks jerryrigged.

The problem is the transmission isn't getting in to gear consistently. When I was troubleshooting I noticed that when I first started the car and moved into reverse, the car responded as it should. Though when I moved to drive then moved to reverse again the car took a few feet of rolling till it got back into reverse. On the third try the car cannot seem to find reverse and rolled forward not engaging reverse. After letting the car sit for 5 mins I got the same results, 1st time works as it should but seems to deteriorate each time after, with the third time not be able to find reverse.

The transmission fluid is slightly low and has evidence of a leak. Our next goal it to top it off and try again. But for the mean time I wanted to ask if this resembles a problem anyone knows about?

Also, there are some intermittent electrical problems ie, dome light randomly staying on and back windshield wiper is always on sometimes but not others.

When the car is in reverse it feels normal but getting to reverse/gear seems to be the issue. I am trying to see if it's possible this is an external transmission issue as opposed to an internal issue.

Thank you in advanced,
Jordin