sup guys, a little background info before the story.

My mom bought the 2001 TL in the summer of 2003. She can't drive on the freeway, and is a very slow driver. Her cruising speed is around 35mph, and maybe once in awhile she'll do 40mph in the city. We'll it's been like this for 2 years.

Now yesterday she let me drive her car home (driving city) from East LA to Koreatown. Well it's a good 25-30 minute drive. Everything feels normal from 0-40 her normal driving range, but on this one long stretch of road with no cars around I gave it a little more gas. The car didn't do anything, so I gave it a little more still nothing, finally put the petal to the floor, didn't do a damn thing (maybe accelerated a bit faster) and then all of a sudden (1-2 seconds later), the car just lurches foward I guess finally getting the response. This happened again while going uphill, I accelerated normally up till about 25 and gave it some gas because it's a decent sized hill, and the car didnt do anything but accelerate a little faster. Then i pushed the gas further and nothing, but 1-2 seconds later the car lurches foward again and i step off the gas.

Now my question is, is this a problem with the transmission not knowing which gear to be in, and therefore not accelerating till it finally finds it and then accelerating, or is it because the car is so used to never going about 35-40mph that it took a really long time for the car to get the message that I wanted to go faster?

Btw driving normally 0-35/40mph is fine with the gas pedal pressed 3/10 4/10s of the way, but if it's more I think the car loses itself for about 1-2 seconds, and then it gets it and lurches foward.

So is the tranny possibly going bad, or is it just that the grade logic in my moms car just needs to get used to my driving?

 

kiddo

it's normal that auto kicks down slower, if you want immediate response, you should should the manual shift

it's called kick down when the car LURCHES forward, from a higher gear to a lower gear to get more acceleration

 

But 1-2 seconds of nothingness, and then acceleration seems a bit long no?

 

sounds kinda weird

my 2000 TL feels torquey all the time....even if im already doing 40 if i hit the gas just alittle more i can feel a decent kick...espcially when that vtec kicks in


instead of tellin us the MPH your doing....tell us the RPMs...that might help out a bit

 

he just doesn't know how to drive, he's a 15 yr old kid

if you want a faster kickdown you can just slam the gas pedal to the floor or use manual shift

 

if you don't slam the gas pedal it takes longer to downshift, it seems fine with me

just the habit of driving

 

I don't think thats the case because today I drove my moms 1989 Camry and I experienced no such thing with it. I floored it and it was smooth acceleration albeit slow. With the TL, I floored it, nothing happened, 1-2 seconds later the car gets the message and then accelerates hard. It's that 1-2 seconds of nothingness, and then the sudden surge of power that worries me.

 

every car has different auto tranny and some of them they respond slow

honda trannys are known for slow downshifts

try at 10mph in 2nd gear and see if you can kick down to 1st gear

 

The PCM and TCM learn the driver's driving habits and responds accordingly. If your mom has been driving very slowly for 2 years, then the computer is too used to being driven slow and easy. Now with you driving and flooring it, the computer is thinking, "Hmm, that's not right. She never used to do that. But hey, it's pedal to the floor, so I guess I should accelerate."

That's one possible factor. It could also be a sticking throttle body, but who knows.

 

By the way, it wouldn't be Grade Logic, because going downhill, the Grade Logic would stay in a lower gear to utilize engine braking.

 

i remember test driving a 1999 salvage title TL before i bought mine...i experiance the same thing....there was a delay in engaging first gear, like a second at most when i took it off the line...i figured it was the tranny and didnt buy the car...even tho it was a black on black with spoiler, tints, 52k for only 9gs

 

Eh at 15 years old, he types/writes a lot better than a bunch of older people on this forum. No reason to give him shit about his age Anyway, regardless of your age, when you floor the TL there shouldn't be 1-2 seconds of delay. It should be something like a split second. My old '93 Ford Taurus had a 1-2 second delay... and THAT was a piece of junk.

 

if there's a tranny problem for your car then you won't be driving the car right now

you just don't know how to drive properly, if u want to shift faster use the manual shift, i guess you know how to use it

and the delay is normal as i told you honda trannies are responding slow, the only way to do faster is to manual shifting

or drive a manual with a stick

 

This is really uncalled for.. so he's 15? A 4 year old can push a pedal to the floor and hold it.

A 1-2 second delay is too long for a TL, and it isn't your age to blame. See about the transmission first (they do act funny before going out, mind you), and take the car out more often for some exercise! It's not good to drive slow like that always... stuff builds up in the engine and exhaust system and when you give it a good WOT run a few times it helps clear it out.

So there you go:

1) See if it has had the tranny recall performed
2) Drive it more aggressively regularly and see if it starts behaving normally.

 

a 1 to 2 second delay is NOT normal. when my gaspedal moves so does my car, it resopnds to down shifts Very quickly. if any thing Pure Adrenaline is possibly correct. for 2 years the car has been babied and now that some one has asked it to do something it hasnt done it has to think about it. with a little time of different driving it may very well go away.

 

Alright thanks a lot for the responses everyone, it's still my moms care and I usually drive around a 1989 Camry. It just worried me a lot because in a situation where she has to accelerate quickly, and that 1-2 second delay happens it might be dangerous. Soon I'll practice driving on the freeway with my dad, and hopefully help my mom learn how to drive on the freeway again, but again with that delay It's really scary because when merging and you need to accelerate fast, and those 1-2 seconds could be very dangerous! So yeah... anyways THANKS AGAIN FOR THE HELP GUYS

 

I think we all may haver different ideas of how long this one to two second delay really is. I would characterize the delay in my car as one to two seconds as well for downshifting in automatic. I thought and still believe that to be normal. Think I'll have Samkws drive mine on weekend if I see him; to see if its the same in both cars.

 

my question is...did you slam the gas pedal to the floor and see what happened??

 

Yes I slammed the pedal to the floor, reason for this was I started pushing the gas petal, i'd say more than half way and then the car didnt really go any faster, so i kept going until i hit the floor, and still nothing, until that 1-2 second delay, and then the car recieved the message, and accelerated hard.

 

this is unheard of, never saw this kind of problem in a car

guess you need to find someone to check out, to find out what's wrong

 

I think I have to agree with Samkws here. If you put that pedal down significantly and it didn't move - lets allow for this " 2 second delay" - and it didn't accelerate hard? - then there is something wrong.

The carbon build up after driving like that may be significant.

 

Throttle cable getting rusty??