Let me first say that I realize that almost all Honda automatics make noise (it is just something they have always done). However, I have a noise in my tranny that is bothering me, and I wanted to know if anyone else has the same problem.

I have about 14,500 miles on my CLS now. At around 5,000 miles I started to get an annoying "whine" at around 40-45 mph. It appears to me that it only occurs in 4th gear. In other words, if I am slowing down from say 60 mph, to 45 mph (the car remains in 5th gear until about 38 mph) I do not hear the whine.

The whine is not a perfectly continuous sound... rather it changes pitch as if the sound is being produced by something that is rotating.

Have any of you experienced this? Have any of you that have had trannys fail experienced this?

 

Are you sure that it only makes the sound in 4th gear?

I know what you said, but you are slowing down.

Have you tried maintaining the 40-45 MPH speed and changing to 3rd to see if the noise goes away. (The idea being to make sure you can make the noise come and go by switching from 3rd to 4th or 5th to 4th in that speed range (don't change acceleration and/or load).

It is just a guess, but if you only hear the noise in 4th, there is a good chance that the problem is related to 4th gear set.

If it only appears from 40-45, you could be talking wheel bearings, differential bearing, etc...

 

Yes, I have tried switching to 3rd gear, without changing any other factors, and the noise appears to go away.

 

Perhaps its time to see the dealer *and* let them listen to the noise. That sure doesn't sound right and my car does NOT do that!