How do you guys handle your tranny failures? If I'm doing 80+ and the car jerks into 2nd, and I'm near other cars, aren't I screwed in terms of hitting them/having them hit me? Which could mean adios to little old me if it causes a big accident?

 

dont do 80

ive had 4 failures, 2 of which were on the hwy. and all 4 gave me warning signs before they failed. if your car starts exhibiting signs of failure just pay attention to the car and drive it safely. and also get it to the dealer

 

well when my tranny started failing it was at about 40 mph and i'm guessing 2nd/3rd and if i was just cruising it would downshift itself, but not as hard as you've described...it downshifts and rpms kick up to about 3 thousand...this usually happens downhill, but i've searched on this site and it has been said to be somewhat normal and not too big a deal, though it feels like somethings really wrong..and then sometimes i have these jerks and hard shifts....

has your tranny jerked this hard at 80+ and down to 2nd? i can't really see this happening, if anything it will take you down to 3rd at 80 and jerk but not so hard that you would lose control....but if this has happened to you and dropped you to 2nd or if you think that this can possibly happen to you (since its your car and you would know how its been treating you) then i think you should take it to the dealer and have them do the job for the tranny recall (warrantied)...i just dropped mine off at the dealers today morning...i beleive they're going to inspect it, maybe install oil jets or possibly replace the transmission itself....

good luck man and like i said before, your best bet is to take it to the dealer and have them re-do the tranny, and keep an eye out for x-mas lights on the dash for warnings...peace

 

There were a few cases where the transmission didn't have any symptoms prior to the failure (or the owner didn't notice them). As far as I can remember, there were two incidents where our members lost control and crashed their cars due to a sudden transmission failure on the highway.

They both walked away. The important thing to do is throw it in neutral as soon as you can, keep the car aimed straight. Don't just go for the brakes. A sudden donwshift like that could upset the chassis and if you're not going in a straight line and apply brakes suddenly, you could spin out.

But like fsttyms1 said, almost always there will be signs of an imminent failure.

 

the tranny Will drop to 2nd, it doesnt matter the speed your going, but you should see the tach rising like a slipping clutch just before giving you time to slow down.

 

they all had symptoms, they just wernt paying attention to the car like they should have.

 

Gotcha. I must've missed that part. Still sucks, though. One of the two that crashed, the dark colored TL, was a nice one.

 

and 1 of the 2 was a woman that gave more grief to this forum. she claimed there was NO signs ever. she was probably too busy putting on makeup

 

I don't know who that was.

Was it stphy32 or whatever, by any chance?? She's the only one I can think of.

 

sounds fimilar all i know is she was a pain in the arse!

 

 

she was violent. damning every one who didnt believer her to hell and bloody crashes due to tranny failure. i had a bunch of PM's from her that were nasty (of course mine were nasty back)

 

Wow... there's just no need for that.

 

yep! And acording to her NO other car on the planet has had tranny failures and this would be her last honda product due to it!

 

Hahaha... this is quite entertaining. I'm disappointed that I missed out on all that fun.

 

a few posts by her at time and you would have gotten sick of it real fast.

back on topic though. any time you experiance any thing not normal with our tranny you should keep an eye on it to see if it does it again (typical signs are slipping between shifts, usually the 2-3 shift)

 

When my first tranny went, I was doing ~ 70mph on rt. 287 in morning traffic (fast lane) going to work. The tranny did drop from 5th to 2nd and the car jerked hard and i came to a stop in the middle of the highway. If it caught you by surprise, I'd imagine that you could lose control of the car and in turn, cause an accident. I had the slipping problem that fsttyms1 stated, but that was months before.. the last one hit all of a sudden.

 

yes the slipping is the early signs to a failed tranny (mine always started slipping about a thousand miles before failure)

 

Glad you didn't get hit or injured. I hope I never have to go through this myself.

 

I haven't had a failure..but would just like to know...how to handle the car when and hopefully IF it happens...let's hope it just doesn't happen to my 01 TL w/65K miles...fingers crossed!

 

Obviously it's the downshift that makes the car suddenly slow down. I would say it's equivalent to a full ABS panic stop, so you're gonna be tossed forward. But you will most likely feel and see the RPMs rising and the deceleration as the car downshifts, so if/when you feel that happening, just throw it in neutral and let it coast. Make sure it's safe to pull over, then call up Acura and tear 'em a new one.

 

its not something we can really tell you to do. if it does go and your above 65is you will slow down in a hurry (just like if you were to manually drop it into 2nd, but if your going faster than the gear/redline it will be a momentary lock up and extreme redline till the gear and engine catch up.

 

That's how I noticed my first one. I was on a long highway trip and I only got 22-24 MPG. Apparently the car was slipping the whole time (fluid was BLACK) - and yes - it failed within 1k miles after that.

My second one didn't kick out too many symptoms beyond some odd random shifting anomalies - and then all of the dash lights come on and my car's in limp mode.

They have all sorts of symptoms, but luckily not too many people experience the 5->2 shift on the highway. I think that's the only way Acura got out of a full recall for safety.

 

Yup. Like ive said for 4 years now! They all exibit some sort of symptoms (except the 2nd gear shaft failure, which none of us have had and is in the less than 1% failure rate that honda and the nhtsa have come up with)