Ok, driving on the freeway @ 65ish. Going up a slight hill, all of the sudden I feel a jerk and the transmission jumps to 3rd and the cruise control is kicked off. Hmm, that's odd...press the gas pedal and it shifts back to 4th and put the cruise back on.

Drive another couple miles, take an exit. Sit at the exit's light. Turn left, drive over bridge to the next light. Before I get there, both RPM and Speedo drop to zero, all dash lights flash. WTF?! Everything goes back then as I stop, both gauges drop to zero again (car is still running fine to this point), then dash lights flash on/off, D4 flashes then goes off, car dies.

Attempt to restart...nothing. Turns over fine, starts up but then immediately dies. Try that 4-5 more times, nothing. Wait a whole light change, then try again - starts and I drove 5 miles with no problems.

What the heck? My car is a 98, so I don't have the pesky extra speed sensor right? Tranny is like 6mo old, alternator is like a year old. Battery was changed same time as the alternator.

 

3.0 tranny strikes again

 

ROFL I'm sorry about laughing at your misfortune but Silvers response made me chuckle

 

It could be a bad alternator diode, if those go bad they can cause all kinds of crazy electrical stuff like the lights.

 

yep. sounds like the symptoms of a bad alternator. The gauge cluster problems wouldn't have happend with a bad tranny, it owuld have just gotten all jerky, but the gauges would have still worked. Have fun getting a new alternator.

 

Start savin

 

Baptize your whip.

 

wrong. I bet my current transmission it's just his alternator.

 

you may be right, I didn't read the whole post, just the part about the lurch. If RPMS and lights are dimming out, it's the alt

 

Well I'm good on teh tranny even if it fucks up - 3yr, 75,000 mile warranty! I'll sell the stupid car before that's up!

I could believe the alternator fuckin up. The original one died, so I bought a rebuilt one from Autozone. $180 lifetime warrany, but they matched $115 from another place. Thought it was a pretty sweet deal, but the POS died a month after I put it in! Had to go swap it for another, which is what's in the car now.

Nothing was dimming, they flashed ON then everything went off! The flashing D4 was probably just the computer saying the TCM was acting up, which it prob was due to stupid voltage.

Suck thing is the main alternator bolt head is almost rounded off from messing with it so much. I need a new one if I have to take it off again. It's only a $1 part but it has to be ordered...I need to go ahead and get one from Acura Carland.

I'll see what happens and keep you guys posted. I drove another 25-30ish miles tonight, no probs. Who knows...

 

i think i remember someone saying they wont take orders unless they are over X amount.. and i'm sure X wasnt .99

 

I never noticed any minimums, but it's $4.95 handling on all orders plus minimum shipping of $5.50 for one pound. So the $.71 bolt + 10.45 = 11.16!

I may just call them tomorrow and see if they even have one in stock.

 

i think its the ignition switch. theres a recall for it.. take it to acura and see if it has been done to your whip yet..

my money is on the ignition switch...gluck pimp

 

Whoa, that can cause this crap? It hasn't been done on this car, I was just holding off on it because I thought the only thing that went wrong was that you could pull the key out while the car was running. Mine's still fine in that respect, so I wasn't going to bother with it.

Hmm...hope I'm not outa the recall - I've got 105,6xx on the clock now.

 

Ya dude you are a genius! That's probably it, after reading some other posts about it - similar things happened to other people (dash lights flashing on, etc). Makes sense too, the car thinks its turning on and off. The tranny is probably confused because it knows it's moving but getting mixed signals.

I signed up on the Acura Owner's Link and found both ignition recalls under my car. The interlock one and the bad contacts one. This is what the bad contact one has listed:

What is the reason for this notice?
Honda Motor Co., Ltd., has determined that a defect relating to motor vehicle safety exists in the ignition switch on certain 1997-1999 3.0CL, 1998-99 2.3CL, and 1999 3.2TL vehicles. Electrical contacts in the ignition switch can wear prematurely due to high electrical current passing through the switch. Worn out ignition contacts could cause the engine to stall without warning. Although the engine will restart in most cases, if your engine stalls while driving in traffic or at highway speeds, you are at risk of being involved in a crash. Difficulties starting the engine (for example, hard-to-start, stalls immediately after starting, etc.) may indicate that the ignition switch is failing.

DING DING DING!

 

well what ever you do, dont wait for the last minute... to be on the safe side, make time tomorrow and get it checked out...


if its the alt, doesnt autozone check it for free?

 

How many of you got a rental/loaner car when doing this service? My local deal SUCKS, so I doubt they will volunteer anything - I'll have to demand it. I just noticed many of the old posts (not that old tho, some from this year) mentioned getting a rental/loaner car.

 

damn, I didn't know about the contacts one, just the interlock one. Learn somethign new everyday. Gluck mang.

 

bumpity bump

Does warranty work = loaner in general?

 

Taking it in at 7:30 in the morning! No mention of any loaner tho...

 

Depends on the dealer, it's usually written in the warranty agreement. I had to rent one last week to put my car in the tranny shop for the 5th time

 

Damn g...whats the deal? I hope you haven't had to pay for 5!

 

Rebuilt once, took it back once for evaluation, then 3 times to fix my center gasket that was leaking all over the place Took them 3 times to convince them to rip out the tranny, cuz they waited till the warranty ran out. Then last week, dropped $650 to get the tranny yanked out and new gasket installed to stop the leak

 

That's ghey...you should shove that gasket down their throats.

Cost me $2450 to do mine, but so far it's been great (knock on wood). Kevlar clutch packs and that nice warranty.

 

Its the alternator. I had the same thing happen to me a month ago and i freeked out because i thought it was the tranny. The alternator was still 300 bucks though.

 

Nah it's not the alternator. I've had two die on me and neither did anything like this. After reading many posts about the ignition switch, it def sounds like that's the problem.

 

sooo... whats the beef? is it fixed now..

 

Sorry guys, I dropped the car off Wed morning and I've been out of town since then.

I picked it back up this morning with no problems. New switch looks about the same, new rubber trim thing but whatever. The light is more recessed in there, at first I was pissed because I thought the new one didn't have it but it's just hidden. So far no more problems, but of course I didn't have any more the day it happened either. The service guy pretty much said that was what happens when it starts going out. Interlock part was like $1.17 lol and the new key switch was like $22. Labor on each one was $39. So Acura got charged like ~$100 for the work.

It's all nice and new tho, makes the scratched up plastic around it look like shit! They were actually really pleasant to deal with overall, quite suprising for this dealer. "Who are you guys and what happened to the other fockers?" The only thing that irritated me was the parts guy telling me a new key was $44, when I bought one two years ago for $25 right when I got the car. They are only $15 from acuraautomotiveparts.org, and 10ish sounded resonable for local markup and programming. Anyone from Atlanta or Nashville buy a key from a dealer there? I'm in both cities alot, I could swing by a dealer there and pick one up. I want a new remote too, this dealer wanted $70, it's only $44 from acuraautomotiveparts.org. <They are in Duluth, do they sell at these prices in person?