When i switch to SS mode and downshift to 4th for more power, the car will not rev like it is supposed to. It will hit 3000rpms and stay there even if I go WOT. The same thing happens in 5th gear. When I switch back to automatic mode, it revs fine. I even turned off VSA and pulled over and turned the car off. Something is wrong with my ss mode. This never happened before. My car has almost 1500 miles. Any ideas?

 

That definitely sounds strange. I'd get your dealer to check it out the next time you're in for maintenance.

 

damn this sucks. You should have seen the pissed look on my face and I was trying to go WOT on 4th and 5th gear and it was reving slower than a snail past 3000rpms. I guess it is time to call the dealer.

 

Was your can in normal operating tempature when you WOT?

 

Yup it was and I had the A/C off too. When I shifted back to auto mode, it revved fine. I'll see if it occurs tomorrow morning and then i'm going to contact my dealer.

 

with my rsx i had ss and sometimes it wouldn't me downshift when it "thought" that it was wrong. it only happened a couple of times but def get it checked

 

Well i'm really upset. I tried again this morning. I have no problems downshifting or upshifting in SS mode... the problem lies with revving the engine at 4th or 5th gear to gain more power.

I was monitoring the tachometer closely this morning. When I accelerate in 4th or 5th gear while in SS mode, the rpm's will shoot quickly to about 3200 rpms and it will just stay there even if I floor it (WOT). I'm not sure if this happens in 3rd gear too as I didn't test it out. When I shift back to automatic mode and I go WOT, the rpms will quickly shoot up to 5000 but will SLOWLY raise from there.

The car doesn't seem to high rev like it used to. It is like I can't even come close to redline even if I tried my best. Keep in mind that I broke in the car as recommended by Acura. In fact, I didn't drive hard for the first 1000 miles. I made an appointment with the service department to have the vehicle checked. They never heard of the problem before. I'm not sure if this is an engine or tranny problem. However, the "check engine light" is not on. =(

 

If you're in D and go to WOT, the transmission will automatically downshift to the lowest possible gear without redlining and will up shift accordingly to maximize your acceleration. If you go to SS mode, the transmission will hold the gear you've selected. If you're in 5th gear and you're trying to accelerate, it will take a lot longer to accelerate than if you were to downshift to 4th or 3rd.

The part that confuses me is you say that it's stuck at 3200rpm. Do you mean that no matter what you do you can't get past 3200 rpm in SS mode? What about if you're starting from a standstill and work through the gears from first to firth?

 

Yup.. that's exactly what I mean.. this occurs in 4th and 5th gear in ss mode. I'm not sure about the lower gears, but I will try it out tonight. I'm literally going WOT on 4th and it shoots to 3200 rpms and stays there.. And i'm like WTF? and by listening to the engine, it doesn't sound like the revs are increasing. I have not tried accelerating from standstill in SS mode, but I will try tonight. I will also try going WOT in automatic mode from a standstill to see if the rpms at least hit 7000. This past weekend was the first time I actually went WOT on my car. In the past, when I downshifted to 4th, the rpms would easily rise without having to mash the gas pedal.

 

Let's say I was driving on a level surface, how fast should the tach needle rise if I go WOT on 4th gear? I tried again on my way home from work and the tach needle quickly rises to about 3200 rpms and then increases super duper slowly after that.. Like if I was hauling a tank going uphill. At 3rd gear and below it is a lot better...but it is a struggle trying to hit 6000rpms. At 5th gear in ss mode? forget about it.. doesn't move past 3500rpms.

 

That's just gearing man.

Analogy time....
If you were riding a bike and you started out in top gear you'd notice it was very hard to pedal. You'd also notice it would take you a very long time to accelerate. If you started out in first gear, you'd accelerate quickly but you'd also reach a point where you couldn't pedal any faster. That's why you'd need to upshift into a higher gear if you wanted to go faster. Eventually you'd reach a gear where you won't have to pedal fast to maintain a good speed. If you came up to a hill and downshifted a couple gears at that point, you'd suddenly have to pedal a lot faster to maintain your speed but you wouldn't have to put as much effort into every revolution.


Apply that to your car's engine. If you started out in 5th, you'd probably stall but assuming you could keep it running, it would take you a long long time to get up to speed. Similarly, if you were cruising on the highway in 5th and downshifted into 3rd, the engine would need to turn a lot faster to maintain the same speed. The advantage to spinning faster is every revolution takes less effort and you'll accelerate faster.

 

Yea but this never happened before on 4th gear. When I used to downshift to get more power the tach would easily rise to over 5000 rpms.. now it struggle to even get to 4000.

 

I don't know what would cause that power loss. I'll have to leave the rest of answers to people that have the 5AT.

If I'm cruising in 6th, I usually downshift to 4th if I'm passing someone.

 

5AT owners... when you downshift to 4th gear and go WOT, does it take a really long time for the tach to reach at least 4000 to 4500 rpms?

The thing that bugs me is that I used to do it without even going WOT and the tach would climb to at least 5000 rpms with no problems.

 

Sounds kind of intresting, any mods you done to the engine, maybe a tube or wire was loose?

Change in oil how many miles? alignment? try going through stupid things like that?

I knwo after I took out the resonator my car acted like that, it struggled in some areas, but it was only for 4 days till I installed the Injen.

 

nope.. no mods. It is bone stock and has only 1500 miles. I even checked the oil and it was fine. I guess i'll wait to see what the dealer says.

 

NJTSXMan, I have 5AT and it does not take that long. It's not super duper fast. Also even though the RPMs are not going up fast, is your speed still going up quite a bit? Like how many mphs are you going when you hit 4000 rpms in 4th?
When you say a long time, how many seconds are you talking about?
Does it ever allow you to go past 5000 rpms in 4th gear?

Try this out on the freeway. If you're going like 70-80 mph and downshift to 4th and floor it, what happens?

Also, does this happen in 1st-3rd gear?

 

I'll try it out tomorrow morning.. but when I say a forever.. i mean it literally looks like the tach is not rising at all...and i couldn't even come close to 5000 rpms last time I tried it at 4th gear. I'm going WOT for a good 15 seconds and the tach has not reached 4000 yet.

 

Okay....sounds like something is definitely wrong. I would take it into the dealer ASAP and I would be very upset with the car being so new.

I'll do some more testing on my TSX. I will reving extra high, just to test it out for you. Sounds like a great excuse to push my car a little bit

 

lol. Thanks man. Can you do me a favor...drop it down to 4th and accelerate hard, the rpms should shoot up... at what point does the rise in rpms begin to slow down significantly? For me.. once I hit around 3200 rpms, the rpms would rise extremely super slow. Also try it on 5th gear, my rpms would not move at all over 3000.

 

Are you testing this out on the highway? 3200RPM in 5th gear on an AT is over 100MPH. I hope you are not expecting the RPMs (and your speed) to climb as quickly as they do when in 2nd or 3rd gear. Don't forget that you are trying to push a lot of air at those speeds.

 

Alrite, with 1500miles on your car.....did you break in your engine rite? when i'm chillin on the freeway and i want to punch on it....i down shift to 4th and gun it....it does not lag @ all....sometimes i go to 3rd gear really fast. Your RPM should not be slow because V-tec is all about top end my man. Have it check out.

 

I noticed the same thing recently on mine with only 500mi, so I assumed it was normal. I was on the freeway doing 60-70 and downshifted to 4th in ss mode to check out the power at high revving end, and needless to say, I was also very pissed that the tachometer barely moved over 3000rpm. I don't quite remember if the car was accelerating OK, but I know it didn't feel fast. I tried a couple time at lower speeds (40-50), and the same thing happened except I could see the car moving from 40mph to 60mph reasonably fast. So my theory is that it'd go faster had I downshifted to 3rd for higher rpm; if you want maximum horsepower, you'd have to go to the lowest possible gear for the highest possible rpm. Anyway, let me know if you had this checked out by a dealer. Hey, I live in NJ too.

 

If you're traveling at lower highway speeds (50-60mph) shifting into SS mode 5th gear or 4th gear won't get you moving very quickly. You'll have to shift down to 2nd or 3rd to get sufficient engine torque to accelerate rapidly. If you're in D and mash the gas pedal, the transmission will shift down to the lowest possible gear that does not exceed the redline at the current speed. At typical freeway speeds, that's 3rd gear, not 4th.

Shifting to any particular gear, even 4th or 5th, locks the transmission in that gear (until vehicle speed slows below that gear's stall RPM). So, just like Dan Martin pointed out, you are just in too high a gear to see the speed increase rapidly.

 

I'm having this same problem wtf I'm starting to hate this $30k piece of shit

 

weird problem.. but you dont really say on how fast your going.

if i'm going 55-60mph in 5th gear it will take quite a while at WOT to get my speed up, however i DO see my tach increasing.

if i'm at 60mph+ in 4th gear it has no problem shooting up with WOT