Over the past 6+ months my car has been slowly getting worse. From a stop, when accelerating in 1st gear with light to moderate throttle pressure the car will jerk/shake as if someone is quickly pushing the throttle down/up.

This happens mostly in 1st/2nd gear 1500-3000 RPM. Once above 3000 RPM the car feels normal. If I accelerate quickly the issue almost never presents itself, but I'm usually above that RPM range.

I have been able to reproduce that jerky feeling in most gears, but 4th-6th gear generally don't exhibit much if at all.

I don't have a CEL and I'm not really sure what to look at for a possible resolution to this.

2006 TSX, 6MT, 117k

Any thoughts and/or help is appreciated.

Thank you

 

Sounds like a dirty throttle body. Please don't tell me you are running a K&N air filter.

If not that, have you done all your maintenances? What has been done in the last year?

 

Spark plugs are due if never replaced.

A good scanner may provide a clue by examining Long Term Fuel Trim (LTFT).

good luck

 

Car has a K&N filter. It's been in there for 11 years and I've never had a problem with it. Car idles just fine, I've never heard of a dirty throttle body idling fine and then cause problems after applying gas.

Maintenance over the last 12 months was 1 annual oil change.

I changed the spark plugs, serpentine belt, and coolant 4 years ago when I hit 100k miles.

I've borrowed a friends ODB bluetooth scanner. I'm using the Torque app. Is there anything that I should look for specifically?

 

I also have NEVER seen a dirty throttle body causing issues. the throttle body would need to be caked on with carbon, BLOCKING the path. and that's a big "hole" to block. if enough carbon BLOCKED the throttle body, you have other issues.

 

If the throttle body was the problem, you'd definitely be having idle problems.

Are you feeling any vibrations through the gas pedal? If so, it may be bent axle(s).

 

No vibrations in pedal.

I did some more looking around and found some information on the Accelerator Pedal Position Sensor. So I took the cover off and there was quite a bit of slack in the throttle cable. I took out 2-3 inches of slack there and got under the dash and played with the pedal itself trying to see if something might be broken/loose.

It has been 24 hours since I did that and everything has been running smoothly. We have also had a temperature increase here and it's been around 95+ in the day time. I'm cautious to say that it's been resolved, but so far so good.