p0717 and p0500

[edickerson]

Im at my wits end on this one guys, but it is a lengthly story, but hopefully one of these clues will lead someone to a solution.

Im driving an '08 yaris sedan with an automatic trans and a 1.5L motor.

ok, here we go. A few years back i had a snow adventure with tire chains that managed to damage my front driver abs cable. quick repair on cable left abs light intermittently on and off, but not a major concern of mine, as none of my other vehicles have abs anyway. three months ago my wife tells me the speedometer stopped working and the check engine light came on. she didn't notice the fact that it also was randomly choosing what gear it wanted to be in while driving down the road and idling very rough when stopped. pulled the code as p0500 and read forums that indicated wheel sensors/abs sensor could be at fault so i went after the previously known issue; i did a much more thorough job on the damaged wire, cleaned out all of the hubs and wheel sensors, and the abs light went away completely. reset the code and it immediately came back on. after more reading, decided to check out the turbine sensor referenced in this forum: http://www.yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=53880
when checking it i did find one of the two wires for the connector pulled out of the plug. i soldered that back in, checked continuity, and resembled. same results. i removed the sensor and cleaned it, same results. tried to get the napa version for $100 instead of the dealerships $300 one but the one they have listed is completely the wrong part (electrical connector is straight up instead of at a 90 degree and the hole for the bolt is farther from the sensor shaft, making it useless). read some more forums that referenced another sensor being responsible for the speed and it being serviceable so i went after that one. it is the one referenced in the top left of the photo in the above referenced photo.
removed it, cleaned it (definately needed it) and reinstalled. drove around for a bit and now, as soon as i shift from 2nd to third the speedometer works (check engine comes back on) and now i don't have overdrive/4th gear. i brought it to a friend with a shop with better diagnostic tools in hopes to narrow down which $300 sensor i should replace. his comp showed the old codes for the wheel sensors and abs but every one of those is functioning properly now. Now its showing a p0717 code that is specific to the turbine sensor (the first one, referenced in the center of the picture, with two wires) quick amazon/ebay search got me a $70 supposedly genuine toyota replacement part. Installed it today, with the same results as every other thing i have done.

to recap, right now, if i reset the code it will give me a hard shift from 1st to 2nd with no speedometer working and a very rough idle, then when it goes into third the check engine light will come on and the speedometer will start functioning, with a smooth idle but no 4th/od.