i have spent 3 days searching this site for the right combo on my problem and have not found any spicifec.
i have a 2000 TL with 180,xxx drove fine and smooth sence i bought it a couple months ago. acura.com says trans was fixed. but does not have the external oil jet and never noticed any blue bolts.
my problem is we (my wife and i) never use the sport shift mode. i had a wild hair up my ass and put it in the sport shift mode at a red light. took off normal (had my kids in the back) and the trans shifted to 2nd really soon and before i told it too, then i tried to shift it to 3rd at 3000 RPM and it would not shift. so i slid it back over to normal mode and the trans shifted to 3rd and went on with its normal operation. no lights at all diving to WAL-MART. leave Wal-Mart and the engine light and TCS lights are on. drove home with apsolutly no problems. then wife takes car to pick up our daughter from the school bus stop and the D5 light starts blinking along with the the other lights still on solid. Wife took the car to Auto zone and had code P1709. i understand it may be the tranny, but i have NO drivabilty problems. but for it to happen when i put it into sport mode makes me think its a sensor or soloinoid not working properly. we are not hot rodders, we have race cars for that, so we have no need for the sport shift mode. any help in leading me to the right sensor or solinod would be great.
thank you

 

Not exactly sure what the problem is, but this may be related. There are 3rd and 4th gear pressure switches on the tranny which are known to go bad. Simply replacing them with new ones has fixed simple shifting issues for several people here. If you decide to go this route, do a search here and you will find that they are extremely easy to replace....a 20 min job.

 

I think your gear selection switch is faulty. I would just reset the ECU and not go into SS mode any more.

 

i had pulled the cables off the battery and let it sit for about 15 min. and it did nothing to help. today i took the consol apart and there was ALOT of coke spilled all over the shifter. i removed the shifter houseing and took it completly apart and cleaned the hole thing. put it all back togeter and drove around the block a few times. i guess it fixed the problem, no lights came on. only thing i noticed was the 2nd to 3rd shift was kinda like it would lunge into 3rd. like it was holding alot of pressure and then shifted. would that be the 3rd gear pressure solinod or the screens need to be cleaned. the fluid is a clean red color and no noticable cluch material in it. very happy the lights are off.
i must have done a good job cuz i had 2 screws left over. HaHaHa!!! why does that always happen?

 

Might wanna start saving up money...

Change the 3rd and 4th pressure solenoids for sure. It can help shifting a lot, and may even prevent failure for a while.

There's no way to measure the amount of clutch material in the fluid without lab analysis. Lunge is not a good sign, but I can't imagine it has anything to do with SS mode. It might just be time.

 

Also remove the solenoid screens on top of the tranny housing under the hood and clean them with carb cleaner. If you see crud on them, then obviously this affects your tranny. And don't forget to change the black tranny filter located there too.

 

That's for the 99TL with the 4 speed. I don't think it's as easy to change the 00-03 tranny solenoid screens.

Changing the tranny filter is a good idea though, assuming he changes the fluid first.