pits200

This isn't a joke, whoever is familiar with my car situations knows that I've been dealing with a lot these past few months.

Well the ordeal continues.... Today driving home from Hilton Head, SC my car stops shifting on the highway and my wife tells me something is shooting out from under my car.

Well I pull over and find that my transmission is pretty much on fire and the dipstick is boneeee dry.

So yes, while my engine was being replaced, the dealership forgot to put transmission fluid back into the car. The car made it about 1,700 miles and now the transmission is destroyed.

I seriously have no more words to express my emotions now.

Allout

Makes me sad reading this. I feel for you man.

pits200

Trust me, my poor wife is taking the brunt of my short fuse right now and Im once again stuck about 300 miles from home in hillville, va or some road off i-77.

I think there is a conspiracy against me, I seriously can't think of any other reason why all of this is happening. But this one should be easy to prove, I just looked at my invoice for the engine replacement and they didn't even charge me for transmission fluid, lol!!!

Allout

Hope they stand up and do the right thing without giving you too much additional grief. I'm pretty sure Acura knows how to swap out transmissions.

nspec_ya4

iTrader: (38)

just get rid of the damn thing. get a 6 speed.

pits200

Lets hope, because even though the trannys are known to be faulty, mine had always shifted great and had 140k miles on it. It scares me that they might try using that as an excuse and that it was just a coincidence that my tranny went so quickly after my engine swap.

They do need to drain the tranny fluid to do an engine swap, right?

pits200

Dude, I'm in so deep already, I don't know what the hell to do.. I just feel like if I don't fix it, then all that other money I spent is being wasted.

newbster

If I could ask-why did your engine need replacement? Reading all these transmission threads makes me nervous with every shift of my transmission. Before this, I thought transmission problems were isolated cases few and far in between-mine is still shifting strong at nearly 280K. After reading this site, I do not know now...

pits200

My tranny did not fail due to the design like so many of the other ones. My engine needed replaced because of a faulty timing belt install and then a faulty engine rebuild. None of my issues have ever been because of the condition of the car, they have been because of people not knowing their ass from a hole in the ground.

princelybug

iTrader: (16)

Sorry pits, I hope things work out for you soon.

rondog

iTrader: (1)

I have a spare 5 speed tranny with a 6 month warranty. I just bought it and I ended up needing a throwout bearing, not a new tranny. I'll ship it to you for $1500 if you want.

nspec_ya4

iTrader: (38)

you can always tell the dealership that you are done with them and will take your car somewhere else for the transmission work. Ask them to pay you for the work and then use that money for a 6 speed swap?

I do work for lots of dealerships and know pretty much all the mechanics that work there. Knowing what i know compared to them. Im usually surprised and laugh at how much they know and their ability to diagnose a problem. They just follow what the book says and dont use their heads. Most of them dont care about customers cars. I always hear "its not my car" so why should i treat it that way.

Rajca

iTrader: (8)

DAMN. bad luck.

time to call corporate and tell them what the fuck has been going on and u want something out of this huge mess (like a 6spd tranny) lol

sgmotoring

Trans should not be even shifting or at least not smoothly if it was missing 2.5 quarts of fluid. Did a transmission hose slip lose and drain the fluid?

pits200

I was wondering the same thing but I know it wasn't leaking because the car never left any spots whenever it was parked anywhere. So I am 100% sure that it wasn't a leak because I really pay attention to those kind of things.

pits200

Rajca, calling corporate in most cases is a great thing to do. But after the incident with the last dealership and my head rebuild, I found out that corporate does literally NOTHING. They have no clout when it comes to after warranty cases. They even admitted, they do nothing because they have no financial investment in the work done. But if it's a warranty job then they get involved.

Trust me, corporate does not get involved, I must have called them back 5 times and they can do nothing, it's pretty pathetic.

brian6speed

iTrader: (5)

sorry to hear

rondog

iTrader: (1)

Corporate are a bunch of prototcol asholes, and the techs don't know nor do they care. maybe 1% like good ole Jens from the OG days would actually be passionate about their work.

fuzzy02CLS

iTrader: (2)

Your cursed. Just give the car up man. Take the loss & never again buy another Acura.
I'm very serious. I don't know how you keep dumping $ into that car. Against many suggestions to not.

SG81

iTrader: (1)

i also feel for you. at this point, i'd get the dealer or whoever worked on you car to deal with this. otherwise, i'd strip the car clean and get something else.

pits200

Trust me I know but it all started off with me getting the car fixed after the timing belt failure. I paid for that under the assumption I'd win the court case and get the money back.

After losing that, I was already in so much and then putting in the new engine I figured the car would run great after that.

It's the case of cutting your loses and I think that's where I'm at right now.

Trust me, Im financially responsible but this has been one thing after another, if the dealership doesn't man up and offer to do something then Im obviously not going to pay to get the car fixed.

Edit, I just got off the phone with the dealership and they said that they will not cover the tranny, they pretty much said there is no way in hell that they will. He told me the car definitely had fluid in it when it left or else the car wouldn't have run.

But like I said, he charged me for every small nut and bolt and coolant but hmmmm there was no transmission fluid charge on the invoice.

justnspace

iTrader: (1)

Pitts, sorry for your troubles.

*just brianstorming
did you actually show them the receipt, showing no charge for transmission fluid?
I would go there in person and stand my ground.
werent you the one that showed us the spark plug???

pits200

Yup that was me with the spark plug too. Now this was another dealership.

pits200

It's official. I'm not turning this into a sale thread but I'm selling the ride for 3k with all mods. If someone wants to spend another 3k and make it a six speed they should have a fast ride with the 3.5 motor in the car.

97BlackAckCL

iTrader: (6)

I can't believe you got screwed again man, so sorry for your situation, definitely bad luck.

pits200

Ya it feels like one long practical joke. I can't wait for fries to chime in and tell us how great dealerships are. Spitzer acura in Mcmurray is where I took the car. This is the same dealership that forgot the ac compressor hookup and didn't recharge the system and didn't replace the ac hose bolt also.

Does anyone know how much transmission
fluid is lost during an engine replacement?

CH46ESeaKnight

I don't now why they would have to drain the tranny fluid to change the engine. The most I would see them loosing from the tranny fluid would be whats in the tranny cooler and the lines, and thats if they removed the radiator to get the new engine in. Unless they just let the lines drain all the fluid and did not pin them up to prevent the draining. If the lines to the cooler are rigid ( not rubber) then they would have likely drained all the fluid.
But if all the fluid was draind they would have not been able to back the car out of the garage.

Also if you tranny was bone dry it would have never ran 1700 miles. It just would have not worked. Has to have positive pressure to change the gears among other things.

I think you are doing the right thing by cutting your lose. I was going to say if you keep the car I would get the airbag system checked before the curse gets you in an accident.

pits200

Then perhaps something was not hooked up properly. I haven't had a chance to look at the car yet. We shall see

CH46ESeaKnight

Just a shot in the dark, but take a look at your radiator fluid and see if there is tranny fluid in it. Just wondering if the tranny cooler is cracked and leaked into the radiator? I know they are both preesurized systems but I would think the tranny puts out more pressure then the surrounding radiator. But once you turn off the engine you would think the radiator pressure would push the mixed fluid back into the tranny.

Just thinking out loud.

When you first got the car back did it take awhile to shift into gear from park? Or was there a thud?

pits200

No the car shifted fine for the first few weeks but the past few days it was harsh. Also I never once noticed any kind of leak on the ground of any type. Also my wife said towards the end when it was dying that there was something coming out the back of the car.

I'm not claiming that the tranny was complete bone dry but that it was not showing up on the dipstick. So if the car had 6 or 7 quarts in the car that would make sense why it still ran but took a few weeks to die

pits200

No the car shifted fine for the first few weeks but the past few days it was harsh. Also I never once noticed any kind of leak on the ground of any type. Also my wife said towards the end when it was dying that there was something coming out the back of the car.

I'm not claiming that the tranny was complete bone dry but that it was not showing up on the dipstick. So if the car had 6 or 7 quarts in the car that would make sense why it still ran but took a few weeks to die

CH46ESeaKnight

I wonder what your wife saw? Is the undercarrage wet? Possible blew the cooler line?

pits200

It was shifting odd for the past 50 miles of the trip there. Then the car sat for three days and then we drove back and it was shifting the same jerky motion for the 200 miles that we made on Tue return trip but she didn't see anything come out till its last few seconds till death. So its not like it was spewing anything for an extended period just at the end before it died

CH46ESeaKnight

It would not take but a few seconds to empty most of the tranny fluid from the tranny if a line did blow.

Wierd sysptomes though. Just got to figure out where the tranyy fluid went.

pits200

Well ya I guess it wouldn't take long for the fluid to drain but the car shouldn't have had symptoms prior. If it failed due to the hose blowing off you would figure I wouldn't be having those problems prior to all this.

That is why I can't help think that the car was low a few quarts the entire time I got the car back

Rapture

Wow, damn What rotten luck, to say the least. Sorry that you have to go through this again and again. IMO I'd say that maybe this is divine intervention, that maybe someone out there wants you to get rid of the car..

So wait, are you starting to think that they DID put fluid in, and that it did in fact leak or get eaten somewhere?

pits200

The title is misleading, I believe there was SOME tranny fluid in the car but I think they forgot to refill the 2-3 quarts that need to be refilled when you change the engine.

As for it going somewhere, it definitely wasn't on the ground or leaking because I would have definitely noticed that.

Im guessing there were about 6 quarts of fluid in the transmission and this allowed it to function semi normally just like an engine would if it had 1-2 quarts of oil in it. But eventually, it is just going to overheat and die.

pits200

As for the car situation, I had my heart set on the 335 but I can't bring myself to go with a BMW after my recent reliability situation. So I think Im going to have to stick with a g35/37 depending on cost. All these problems really dipped into my new car fun hardcore.

civicdrivr

iTrader: (9)

Go for the 335. They do have the 4 year warranty on everything. Just unload it after that.

pits200

Eh, I don't typically buy new cars, especially a bmw because of the markup. I also put mucho miles on the car like I did with the CL and the year warranty means nothing, its the mileage warranty that I need to worry about.

Oh well, that's neither here nor there. I'll just drive the TL till August when the lease is up then I'll pull the trigger on the new ride.

So what's your verdict on this Civic? What do you think happened to the tranny? You're always good for a few insights.