I could be paranoid but i think my brand new 5 week old 2002 type-S is having some problems with the tranny.

The car seems to hesitate when accelerating just after I slow down, but not stopping. There seems to be a 1-1.5 second hesitation like the tranny is in neutral then it engages.

I love the car, but these symptons scare me...can anyone shed some light into this.

thank you in advance.


-carlos

 

When you say "in neutral” do you mean that the engine revs climb without any forward motion (during the pause you mentioned)???

 

The same thing happens to me, too. I'll be braking to slow down at a traffic light, but the engine revs as if I was accelarating.

 

Yes, that is right.. When I brake comming up to a red light, and if I don't have to actually stop let's say just slow down from 60km to 10km and then accelarate because the light is no longer red, there seems to be a hesitation on the part of the car to move accordingly,(I can hear the engine rev up) like the car is in neutral and then the gear engages.

 

Same thing happens to me. I'll slow down to almost a complete stop at a stop sign (of course I don't stop completly) and then hit the gas lightly...there is hesitation and then the tranny kicks...

I'm going in for my 5k oil change so I'm going to ask them to look at the tranny too.

 

I beleive that has something to do w/ the torque converter. I notice this while in ss mode in 4th or 5th while going at a cruising speed. When you hit the throttle the rpm's spool up rapidly without shifting. Me thinks thats the T converter, correct me if i'm wrong.

 

I think what you are saying is normal behaviour... You are moving quite fast in 4th gear, and the T converter now requests a lower gear (it needs time to do so). My symptoms are always in automatic and the car is automaticly gearing down, like autoshifts from 5 to 4th then to 3rd now to second and finaly gears down to first, I presume?? (at this moment I am still breaking and moving at aproxim 10km/h), but if I accelarate at that precise moment, the car is not in gear as expected.


-carlos

 

Mine does the same, but in addition when I put it into reverse there is now a definate clunk. It sounds like an old rear wheel drive car that has a bad universal joint. I bring mine in in a week so we will see what they find

 

For what it's worth, it sounds somewhat similar to the way my car was operating during the first few weeks I owned it. This particular behavior would only occur while I was driving around town. I was able to almost eliminate it by using D4 instead of D5 whenever I was not actually on the highway. My guess was that the car was quick to get up to 5th, but driving around town, it doesn't get to stay there very long and this was somehow "confusing" for the transmission.
Also the tranny is supposed to "learn" how we drive and then adapt so I don't know how much of the solution was using D4 and how much was the computer adjusting things to the way I drive.

 

Out of curiousity, are any of the Canadian TL-S owners having this sort of problem with their tranny? Kinda scaring me cuz I'm picking up my TL-S next Saturday.

Also, is this only happening in SS mode? Surprising to me that I've only heard of these problems in the 2002 TL-S.

Thanks,

InspireS

 

I was wondering the same thing about Canadian cars. Mine is fine. I drive it in all modes, usually do not use D5 unless on the highway. Stay in D3 alot around town. Like to keep the revs at 2-3 grand around town. Car accelerates well from that RPM. I rev up to about 5500 at times but never over 6000. Probably seems sedate to most members but the tranny is still sound.