I have a '97 CL3.0. Have nearly 88K miles. Has been maintained regularly. A few weeks ago the trans started to act wierd when the car was cold. It would take seveal seconds for the trans to engage in first gear after start up. On the shifts it would also take several seconds to shift. It was as if it was in neutral during those several seconds. Sometimes it would even miss second gear entirely. I would have to resort to shifing manually taking my foot off the gas between shifts. Once the car was at operating temp it work perfectly. No hard shifts, no long shift times. I thought maybe it was hard seals that softened when it warmed up. I tried some "seal softener". Made no difference. The trans never slipped, by the way. Once the gear engaged it was solid. The dealer suggested a "trans flush" which was really a complete trans and converter oil change. It made no difference except in my wallet. Question: could it be the trans computer? Since the trans behaves perfectly when warm, I was wondering if it could be that once the under hood temp gets hight enough, the electronics worked properly. Acura wants $4000+ for a trans and $800+ for a new trans computer.

 

Your 3.0 trans is about to go. Mine started doing the same thing at 87K. I just had mine rebuilt a few weeks ago. The first 2 places I took it to saw no problems, cuz they drove it warm. I made aamco redrive it on a cold start, and they saw the problem finally. The 3.0 trannies are known to go bad, be prepared to drop some money on a new tranny. It'll drive ok for a while, but it's all downhill from here.

 

well i was gonna suggest just to have it drained and refilled.. a flush will ususally cause more problems than it will fix. have them check the linear solenoid for continuity. or just have them replace it.. that is the cause on maybee 1/4 of these tranny failures. make sure they check it when its cold. cause the solenoid could be stuck when cold, then when it expands when it gets hot the solenoid inside works again. do it quick, and wait for your car to warm up before you drive anywhere till you find out what the problem is cause that one sensor bein replaced is alot cheaper than an entire tranny rebuild.

 

I have a '97 3.0 CL also and around 60k miles, my transmission did the same thing. I was even getting 2nd gear scratches some mornings. I had the thing rebuilt and when the guy took it apart, one of the bearings inside had been eaten up (small chips out of each roller). All the metal from the bearing had been flowing thru the valve body and scarred all the valves. After they put it together, it seemed to run fine, until a few days later when it got cool again. It started acting up again, just not as bad. I took it back and they opened it up again and did an extensive flush and removed even more metal shards. They also tried sanding down the valve bores to keep them from hanging. After it was done, i drove it around some more and it was still messing up, but was better than the first rebuild. I took it back again and they basically said there was nothing else they could do for me without me buying a new transmission. In my case, it was the valves that were causing the hard shifts. The valve would stick closed, but when enough fluid pressure got behind it, it would be forced open causing the car to shift like that. But when the fluid would warm up, the valves would not stick anymore. My car is running pretty well now though. People who ride in my car dont ever notice anything, although i can still feel some of the shifts. It has started to cool down again and i have noticed it to be a little more rough. Good luck with everything and i hope this helps.

 

That's the same exact shit that happened to my tranny, the rear bearings broke off, and flowed back and forth through the tranny just chewin shit up left and right. Got tranny rebuilt

 

they never replaced the valve bodies? that sounds kind of shysty.. i know if i payed over 2000$ for a rebuild i would be back everyday until they got it right... when you rebuild a tranny everything comes out and all you have left is a shell. there should never had been any more metal pieces in there to do anymore dammage. that is why i hate shysty mechanics...sons of bitches.

 

GIve it a week, it'll shift like crap cold and hot, mine went bad in no time, i'm waiting for it to crap out before mya ppt. at the dealer tues

 

Yep, I'm going to get my 4th transmission in a few weeks and it's a freakin' automatic...

 

Ouch.. how many miles do you have? I've got ~85k on mine and so far luckily no problems.

 

woooahhh buddy. 4th transmission already? man, thats some major pain. i feel bad for you. hahhah... whats been going wrong with all of ur other trannys?

 

I have almost 180,000, I'm going to end up driving that car into the ground. I really don't know why my transmissions always die, I didn't start "play" racing until this year so that can't be the reason for the others dying. I figure it's about time for a new car but I can't decide if I want another ac or if I should just go for a honda. Whatever I get though, I know it's going to be a V-6; I don't need the extra hp, but it's nice to have just in case!

 

I finally got my tranny re-built. Turns out that one of the axle bearings was going bad and sending a lot of metal particles through the trans. The shop where I had it re-built did a complete washing out of all the oil passages including the cooler and cooler lines. Its been almost a month and it's still working ok. The noticed that it is much quieter now in 4th gear on the highway....probably due to the new axle bearings. I have noticed a pretty loud turbine type sound now in first and second gear. By the time in shifts to 3rd its gone. I paid about $2500 for the rebuild with a coast to coast 2 year guarentee from a local tranny chain. I had bad luck with Ammco in the past and would never go there again.