Protential

My 98 2.3 CL is automatic. Last friday, at an off-ramp yield sign, I bumped into the back of an SUV and put a hole in my front bumper, but did nothing to the SUV. My airbags didn't deploy, there was no other damage to the car.

After the usual post-fender bender festivities, I pulled away. My tranny disengaged and my engine rev'd to about 4,000 RPMs during the shift from first to second gear. It disengaged again and rev'd slightly less going from third to fourth. Once the car reached fourth gear, it drove fine until I got home.

The next day, the tranny is still acting weird and my "check engine" light comes on.

I take it to my local Honda dealer to have it checked out (we don't have an Acura dealer within 100 miles). They clear the check engine light by resetting it and then they say they can find no reason the accident would have caused my transmission to act up. They say it's just bad luck that my tranny went bad at that particular time.

This just seems too weird to me. I bought the car at 80,000 miles and it now has about 107,000. I keep up on the maintenance, have regular oil changes with fluid checks all around. There has never been any sign of trouble. It has run like a top every day I have driven it.

Is there something the Honda dealer is missing? Could a 10-mph (or less) bump to the front end have damaged something that would make the tranny act up? Wouldn't computers pick up something like a bad sensor? (Not knowing if they can even hook my car to their diagnostic machine)

By the way, this is my sixth Honda product and I have never, ever had to put a transmission in any of them. An Accord, three Civics, and a CRX-si. Four manual trannies and two automatics. Never even had to change a clutch plate and I put at least 200,000 on all of them but this.

Any advice is appreciated.

agranado

well, if you've read enough posts on these threads/2nd gen CL forums about auto trannys, you'll know that they are death

also, I think there's a 100k warranty for auto tranny CLs too (could be 2nd gen CL though..)

you shouldnt have auto in the first place man! whats wrong w/you? Anyways, hope that whatever remedy you find for this wont be burning your bucks.

-Alex

Protential

Yeah, everything I read about the bad automatic trannies involved 3.0s. I can't find a single post complaining about 2.3 tranny probs.

Why'd I get auto? I'm 44. I dont race and I was tired of trying to balance a large black dunkin donuts coffee while trying to shift. (Honda cupholders are pactically useless in manual shift vehicles. Can't complain about anything else, though.)

Still, I guess I'm still asking if there is some kind of other problem that could be causing the tranny to act in this way? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Protential

Just bumping to get a new day of viewers.

Anyone have any ideas about where online to find people who know the workings of these engines and trannies? Other forums, etc...

Protential

OK so it's clear now that no one has any expertise in this area, so I'll share what I've learned and perhaps the next poor sap looking for information other than how to pimp their ride will have something more to go on.

We have a local transmission place. Family-owned. Father, brother and a couple sons. I called them today and the first sentence out of his mouth was "that's unusual for the four-cylinder. If you had told me it was a 3.0 or 3.2 I might have expected it, but the 2.3s and the four-cylinder Accords are very reliable."

So, first off, if you have a 2.3 and the tranny starts acting up, it's unusual. I've searched this forum and I've searched the entire web looking for large-scale mentions of tranny problems in 4-cylinder CLs and Accords. I can't find them. If someone know where they are, please clue me in.

Second, he said, put the thing on a diagnostic machine. The trannies are computer controlled and the diagnostic should tell you if any problems are being sent back to the computer. Despite the fact that my check engine light came on after the accident, my local Honda dealership said they were not getting any code saying there was anything wrong, so they simply reset the computer to make the check engine light go away. (I have a feeling the dealership doesn't know what they're doing.)

Finally, the guy at my mom-and-pop offered to look at for free and give his assessment of what's going on. It cost me $80 for the dealership to basically shrug its shoulders and tell me I need a $3000 tranny rebuild.

So, anyway, that's what I know. I guess if my problem would have been finding the best angle to photograph my ride at the next meet-up, then I might've gotten some help here. Anyway, good luck with that.

wilp99

check your sensors. maybee one came unplugged. it really sounds like ur vehicle speed sensor is bad. u could have cracked it in the accident, or it could have come unplugged. check these sensors. this is the only pic i have and its of a 3.0 but the 2.x has similar sensors. http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/wilp99...98.jpg&.src=ph this is your shift pressure solonoid. i this is bad it will shift hard in most of the gears. im not exactly sure where your vehicle speed sensor is on the 2.x but take it back to the mom and pop peeps and tell them thats what big wil said it sounds like. give em somewhere to start. also check your tranny cooler lines should be the only hoses going from your tranny to the radiator. make sure they arent kinked, or that there isnt a problem with your radiator, this would cause poor fluid flow and piss poor shifting.

wilp99

its #11 on the diagram this is for the 3.0 tho. should be in bout the same location as yours.

wilp99

the one circled in green is the linear solonoid. controls how much pressure is used for shifting.

Protential

Big Wil, Many thanks for providing the information. I finally got my car back from the Body Shop today (three weeks to change a bumper). The tranny is still acting up and I have an appointment tomorrow to have the momandpop shop look over it.

Reason I'm writing: for some reason the picture of the linear solenoid isn't showing up. Could you post it again or E-mail it to scottATnicevacationsDOTcom?

Thanks.

wilp99

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/wilp99...98.jpg&.src=ph

its the one in green. it looks exactly the same on the 4 cyl. too.

bRunCL

iTrader: (1)

the only thing i can think of is to make sure you have enought fluid. maybe some leaked out during the accident?