I have searched the internet to no avail. My 2009 Quattroporte S 4.7 with 55,000 miles as I was driving in heavy traffic last night and the traffic cleared and I stepped on it to go, the car slowed down and then shot off. Then the dash lite up to say "Check Transmission, go see dealer" Also it says "manual mode unavailable" It has done this in the past, but all I had to do was turn the car off and restart it and everything went back to normal. That is not working now. I did unhook the neg terminal on the battery for about 30 secs. When I put the car in drive and move the selector over to manual, it says the car is in 3rd. I was not far from home when this happened and I could feel the car not shifting all the way down to low when slowing down to turn. The car is Silver.
Can the car be driven without hurting the transmission as I want to drive it to where I can get it looked at or is there a way to reset the computer with the paperclip and piece of string I have?

 

I got today same problem on my 2009 model with 73k KM. Sad no one replied to your question, to understand if this is something commonly depending from sensors or electronic errors, or real severe mechanical issues. I have just replaced transmission oil and filter 2 weeks ago, and workshop told me the transmission was fine....

 

I ended up getting the car towed to an independent Maserati tech and he reset the computer and the car is fine again. He suggested I get the filter and fluid changed and I called a guy who is a ZF trans authority and he said to leave it alone until something really does happen. So far the car is fine. I've put about 4000 miles on it since. Do not drive it much.