I had a cracked rad and that ended up draining the tranny fluid and a little coolant got into the transmission (not my 6 speed but in an automatic). The rad was replaced and the tranny was flushed out. The shop said to monitor the tranny and see how it went. Well if I am cruising along in D5 at a slow speed i.e less than 60 km/h with my foot barely on the gas and then I step on the gas to accelerate, I hear a rattling kind of noise for about 1 s and then it goes away. The tranny does shift and the car starts accelerating. If I am going 100 km/h in D5 and do the same thing, it behaves normally. When driving around town in D4 it's only rattled maybe once or twice, but regularly if in D5. No noise if diving around the city in D4. I've tried cruising in D5 and then downshifting manually before pressing on the gas and there is no rattling noise from the transmission. It's hard to describe the sound, it's like a rattling/vibrating/grunting noise. If I am at a stop in D5 and accelerate there's no noise or it shifts normally, even if I floor it off the line. Otherwise the tranny seems to be shifting fine, once in a while there's a harder shift than normal, but I' think that may be due to it downshifting two gears if I am accelerating. I've put about 2000 km on it over the past few months and it hasn't gotten any worse from what I can tell. Any thoughts about what it could be? Would it be something that would require a new tranny (i.e. would it be something that will cause tranny to fail).

 

maybe try getting it flushed again (with honda atf) then if that doesn't help it, then just deal with it till you can't deal with it anymore, or the tranny completly craps out

 

I was thinking of getting it flushed out again. I don't mind the way the tranny is acting right now. It's not slipping or anything and I can drive around town in D4 and no problems and D5 on the highway no problem. Even if I had to drive in D4 on the highway, I don't think the fuel saved would add up to the cost of getting a new tranny! I just don't want it to conk out all of a sudden. From the way it's been going so far, I don't think that it would conk out, but that's what I wanted to double check with the board users if they had any ideas if the symptoms are most likely going to lead to a tranny failure or not.

 

Myself and a few other guys are having the same problem, we think torque converter between us for the most part. Using D4 does mask the problem pretty good.

 

coolant on clutch packs is a big mistake, ur in for an expansive repair. thy draining and filling it. but it might be too late.

 

Dont flush our trannies! only do a 3x3, flushing it stirs up the clutch pack material, clogging lines

 

I had to get tranny flushed...the fluid had gone into coolant line (had chocolate milk overflowing from coolant reserve tank and the tranny fluid was all drained out...had to be towed to a shop. Thus had to get rad changed and the tranny flushed.
Drove on the highway for about 100Km yesterday. D5 seems to have a different sound compared to other gears...not sure if i'm imagining it or not. It's a louder, lower pitched sound than D4. I know that the engine is at a lower RPM, but I don't think the other gears sound like that at the same RPMs. It did make that loud noise in D5, but it doesn't last as long as long as it does at lower speeds, it lasts less than a second. D4 did make the noise a couple of times when I let off the gas completely and the truck started to slow down and then I pressed the gas again. Other than that the transmission acted normally at highway speeds for an hour. I was travelling around 110-120 km/h.
I'm trying to avoid the expensive repair job if possible.

 

the coolant has proably already done it's damage to the tranny, just turn up the radio drive it till it fully craps out

 

Update: I've gone on a few 600 km trips and the problem hasn't gotten any worse. As before, I don't notice the noise in D1,D2 or D3. Once in a while it will occur in D4...in the conditions described earlier and same for D5. I was paying more attention to speeds RPM's etc. It seems that when I am driving in D5 and I shift into D5 initially it doesn't make any noise, but then after a second or so I hear the noise as the RPM drop another 200 RPM or so and then it goes away. I also find that if I give it a little bit of gas when switching into D5 I am able to prevent the noise 99% of the time. When I am on the highway and on cruise control at anywhere between 100-120 km/hr I only got the noise once or twice and it was when there was a bit of a sleeper incline. The faster I am going, the shorter time the noise lasts (but it's never an excessive length). Could it be the lock-up-converter?

 

by what you are desribing it does sound like the torque converter lock up clutch, and it would primary lock up (by design/programing) in 5th gear which is only/mainly why you really hear it in D5 (only position which allows the tranny to shift into 5th except sportshift [which you haven't talked about])

it MIGHT get better as you drive it more as the lock up cluth wears a little and it gets rid/wears off the contaminated clutch material, but no promises'

also it sounds like that you potentaly saved yourself from having to get a new tranny right away by doing the right thing and having it towed to a shop instead of limping it there

also one more thing that you could do to help the tranny out, is to get the filter changed (mine seemed to shift better after i changed it, proably from not so much backpressure) (and it looked pretty clogged and had metal shavings in it, when i cut it open with a pipe cutter afterwards) also don't forget the shift solenoid filter screens that are part of the o-ring that seals them to the case

 

friesm2000...actually my wife had to get it towed because it was barely moving at the time due to low tranny fluid. She and the others in the truck at the time it happened said that there were lights that came on in the dash. Also, we called a cousin at whose place my wife had been earlier in the day which was a few 100km away and there was some fluid in his driveway which means it had been leaking for awhile while it was being driven on the highway Off course that doesn't figure into trying to get it covered under warranty because the truck was ~374km over the warranty when it was towed, otherwise I think it would have been fully covered under warranty! Sucks that the tranny and the coolant share a common area where a crack can cause cross-contamination; I've heard on some vehicles that they are totally separate and something like this can't happen if the rad cracks. Too bad that was not the case for me and a $400-$500 part failing can cause damage to a $4000-$5000 part!

 

???so is the truck an mdx??? cause you say truck

also on my 03 tl-s the tranny cooler is on top of the tranny instead of in the radiater but it still has coolant running through it, so it still could potentaly fail and cross-contaminate the fluids
also you might be able to get them to cover it under warrenty because it not that far over the warrenty (they might goodwill it)(and it should have the mileage/kilometers on the invoice to show that you weren't that far over), just remember the squeky wheel gets the greasing, also instead of just talking to the dealer , go higher up and call up acura of canada, the number should be in the owner's manual or you proably can find it on their website, even then they might only cover a portion of it which is better then nothing.
ALSO remember you do not have to go to the dealer for it especially if they won't warrenty it, there are INDEPENDENT SHOPS which should be quite a bit cheaper, and just make sure that they put in a rebuilt acura tranny, not being rebuilt by the shop cause then you will get a 3year/36,000 warrenty on it by acura (as far as in the US don't know exactly about canada but proably is fairly similiar)


like i have seen lexus cover a door lock module on a gs300 when it was like 4,000 or 5,000 miles over the warrenty peroid by goodwilling it and the owner doesn't go to the dealer for maintence at all, so just be persistent and polite

 

Just to make it straight... what kind of car are we talking about?, bc none of the 01-03 cl or tl had its ATF cooling run through radiator loop. We all have cooler/warmer on the top of tranny, but i do not see how that thing could have possibly break and even if it broke it would not cause outside leak ... something does not match or you had your car modified to run cooling like that

 

woops, I should have stated 05 MDX...now I know it's not technically a CL question, but have been on the CL board since i bought the CL brand new back in 2002 and find that some people on this board with Cl's have MDXs as well or just have a lot of auto knowledge and experience. I had initially posted on the MDX site and didn't get any responses (there are some responses there as well now), so I posted here where I know we've have some members with a lot of auto know how (and they may not check the MDX site!) and I figured that although the tranmissions may be different, it may be something that can generally occur in trannies. In terms of my CL, knock on wood, the 6 speed tranny hasn't given me any problems and it has 147K Km on now. Time to change the tranny fluid on it, just in time for winter.

 

basically all the 2001 (or so) to 2004/2005 honda 5-speed auto trannies had issues and all are basically the same except for maybe the valve body/programming (for vehicles differents weights) also the coolers are differnet
also the ealrier ones were the worst

and having looked at the mdx board before it is quite empty compared to the tl/cl boards, so i can understand why you came to this board

also how you say you have a 6-speed in your cl, IT'S A MANUAL not a P.O.S. auto, and the manuals don't have any really known issues except for in the accords which pops out of 3rd gear, but i think that is more damage caused by people not shifting right over a peroid of time,
also people sometimes says it can be kinda notchy which is geneally just staying on top of fluid changes

 

3rd gen tl's also have the problem of 3rd gear popping out.

 

...lI do not think it is a lockup solenoid fault..... what kind of flush did you get for your tranny, bc in case of antifreeze contamination ( which is not is so dangerous if detected quickly ) you need extensive transfusion, not just couple drain and fill. Even just a little of water left, will emulsify ATF causing clogs at certain valves ... I would do 10qt flush with regular atf and follow with 10qt of Z1 ...and it has to be -while running all gears -transfusion

 

Yeah, the CL board has been good to me over the years...A lot of great people with a lot of car knowledge on this board. Every year it's like, hmmm....what should I mod now...let's see what people on azine have been doing lately (BTW I blame this board for the mod bug!) In terms of the tranny, yup, the manual tranny rocks! It's never popped out of gear over the seven years I've had it. Every once in awhile it likes not to go into gear (i.e. the shifter doesn't want to move into gear and I have to do it a couple of times to shift it...happens once every six months) When it's cold outside, then the clutch gets really slow; I don't even have to look at the thermometer when the clutch is moving slow then I know it's at least -10 degrees Celcius outside. Other than that, the manual has been great...so much fun going to red line! But I digress...

I figured the MDX tranny and that on the CL/TL would be fairly similar (not exactly the same, but a lot of overlap), thus I figured I would try this (my usual) board out as well...as long as the mods didn't lock my thread
For the MDX tranny, I will give the transmission shop a call and see what type of flush they did. It was a complete flush as far as I'm aware and I think they use some sort of suction to get everything out. I wonder if the truck was running at all when they flushed out the tranny.