ilovemangoes

Hi,

I've read through tons of threads on transmission failures these past few days and it seems like no one ever updates back with the final results. I have tried pm-ing I hate cars, but it seems like his inbox is full so here I am asking the Azine crowd for help.




I have been experiencing a delay when shifting to R > D and vice versa lately, but what really concerns me is with what happened last night...


For the past few days, I do experience rare occasions of transmission slippage where to RPMs will suddenly rise as if it's in neutral for a second and then gets back into gear, but last night while driving home, the transmission crapped out on me and I was left stranded. The car seemed to be unable to find either R or D and just continued revving as if it was in neutral. However, if I'm lucky, the car will catch onto D for possibly a few seconds before it disengages again.


During the last 5 minutes of my trip home, I figured that if I kept my RPMs inbetween 1000-2000, I was successful in keeping the transmission in gear and luckily was able to make it home that way.


Could anyone please advise me as to what you think the issue might be and if I most likely will need to replace the transmission?


Acura has quoted me $3000 for a rebuilt tranny w/ 2 year warranty while a local shop has quoted me roughly 2.5k for a rebuilt transmission w/ 1 year warranty.


What course of action do you suggest I take?

Really disappointed in Acura right now as the transmission has literally under 40k miles on it....

ZOMGVTEK

How much of a delay was there between R and D? You can probably hear how quickly the solenoids kick over if you have the car parked in a garage, engine off, ignition on. IIRC its about a 1-2 second delay before the car even tells the transmission to shift, then theres a minor mechanical delay. If its any longer than that, it's very concerning. Sometimes you can't tell if the trans is slipping a bit, and putting extreme wear on the clutches.

Regardless, that won't help you now. When an auto is slipping, its game over. Slipping is BAD on autos. If it wasn't dead when it wasn't going into gear, its dead after a drive with it slipping that bad.

You can get it rebuilt, with varying degrees of success and cost. Or, take it to the dealer and have them charge you 3K+ for the reman unit that has your best chance of lasting another 40K.

Honda/Acura does not make reliable transmissions. The best of the bunch are OK, and the 06 TL's are not particularly good. Do you drive in an unusual way that might result in this early failure? Lots of heavy duty traffic and starting/stopping? Just highway driving and never changing gears or overheating the transmission, it should last nearly forever. Technically miles don't tell the whole picture.

ilovemangoes

My daily commute consists of a 10 minute drive on the highway with 5 minute being in the city. I do not drive it hard on daily basis but will bring it around 4-5k rpm on a spirited drive once a week, but that's only after I have gotten the RV6 v3 j-pipe and PCDs installed last month. So in total, there has probably been 4-5 days in a month where I actually pushed the car a bit from 2nd > 3rd but no more than 5 times a day on those separate days.

However, there is a lot of stop and go traffic in my area when I'm not on the highway. It was driving fine on the night of the incident until I stopped for about 5 minutes to pick up a friend at a mall, and afterwards the transmission started to act up.

ZOMGVTEK

The transmission should have lasted much longer under those conditions. If you lived in an extremely dense area and the thing had 40K of insane stop and go traffic, I could see it being 'normal'. RPM's are fine, but every shift more or less wears the transmission. Higher load shifts wear it more, but the key to having a transmission last forever is minimize the shifts it does, which tends to mean avoid traffic.

It might have been slipping a bit for a while, or it might have been a sudden failure. Lots of things can go wrong, but it's almost definitely going to need opening or replacing. Most everywhere you go is just going to quote you a rebuild or replacement and not actually 'diagnose' it. My vote would be to search around and see if you can find a nice shop willing to rebuild it cheaper than 3K, and hopefully provide a warranty that actually is useful. Costs for rebuilds can be all over the place, and cheap isn't always the best route, but it is cheap. Be aware most places, especially ones that don't charge enough, will find any way possible to not fix a problem after they have your money. The dealer is probably the safest bet, but its also probably the most costly. They SHOULD stand behind the work, anywhere else might be a gamble. It just depends on how much the 3K the dealer quoted you means to you.

Lots of people are big on the 3rd/4th pressure switches as preventive maintenance, just for future reference. But typically people are doing this beyond 40K... You should almost be fine keeping the factory fill of fluid in for those miles.
https://acurazine.com/forums/3g-tl-2004-2008-93/110-diy-guide-replacing-3rd-4th-gear-pressure-switch-3g-tl-2004-2006-a-729149/

Just to make sure theres nothing funny going on, did you check the transmission fluid? Is the level about right? As long as its not REALLY low, it won't cause the issues you're having. What color is it? If you're slipping clutches bad, it should look horrible. If it's super low or isnt even showing up, it would cause the trans to not work, but it would also absolutely trash the thing by using it like that.

ilovemangoes

Yeah, I`m quite surprised that the transmission died so soon too. The slippage started to happen after the installation of the J-pipe and PCDs, not sure if the increased torque and horsepower affected the performance of the transmission or not.

I`m not quite sure how to check the transmission fluid but I did have the ATF fluid changed at 20k miles, so it`s been less than 20k miles with the new fluid.

ZOMGVTEK

Pop the hood, the transmission will have a dipstick somewhere on the top. I don't have an automatic TL, but I have some experience with the B7XA out of 98-02 Accord V6's, which is quite similar. It should be somewhere near the driver side and have a yellow or orange handle. It might be near or under the airbox area. There should be one for the engine oil, and another one thats harder to see and access for the transmission. It should be fairly obvious which is for what. The fluid should be a red color and tends to get darker as it wears.

Who did the fluid change?

ilovemangoes

I brought it to a local mechanic that my family has known for a few years, but I`m starting to think that he did not do the 3x3 procedure. At 20k miles, he told me that the fluid needed to be changed and just quoted me a price. That was also before I joined Azine and learned about all the different things regarding the 3G TL as I bought the car used at 20k miles and that was my first service that I needed.

ilovemangoes

Is it too late now to do anything about it as the horrible slippage happened yesterday and I haven't driven the vehicle ever since I parked it at home. I started it up and did shift the transmission into R + D and feel it engaging into gear (crawled a few steps), do I have any hopes of this being an easy fix?

ZOMGVTEK

Lots of times people do power assisted flushes, which should have been OK at that mileage. I wonder what fluid he used... Honda AT's are quite picky, and running improper fluid can explain the early failure.

If the transmission is extremely low on fluid, it would explain your issues yesterday. However, even if it was in perfect shape yesterday, its in bad shape after driving it like that. The damage is done. About all you can do now is hope the fluid is low, add some more, and hope it lasts a while. Unless it's leaking really bad, it was probably low for 20K, which is not good.

However, this is all speculation until you check the level. It's really simple. Find the dipstick, pull it out with the car off, wipe it off, put it back in, pull it out again and see where the fluid line is on the marks. If you see nothing, thats probably actually the better bet. If you see fluid somewhere over the lower mark, you need a rebuild.

This "3x3" method is just the safest bet for exchanging the transmission fluid. You don't get it all out from the drain plug on the bottom, so people drain it, refill, drive around, and do it again 3x in a row. This way, most of the fluid is changed. I doubt anyone would do this unless you specifically asked for it. At 20K you don't really need to do this, and autos, especially Honda A/T's can be rather sensitive. It's best to do a single drain and fill, or "1x3" as people refer to it here, every 10-20K, to keep the fluid fresh, rather than run it until its shot and replace it all.

ilovemangoes

Thanks, I can't perform the check because my driveway is on a steep incline and I heard the car needs to be leveled to check properly, I am already expecting the worst so I will most likely put the car out of commission for a few months to save up for the repair bill.

NBP04TL4ME

Just a quick thought, but you may want to talk with your local Acura Dealer. The transmission is covered under the limited powertrain warranty for 6 years / 70,000 miles. Admittedly being that we are in November, you are likely out of warranty based on time. However it's possible the car's in service date was very late in the 2006 calendar year and/or you might get some of this covered under goodwill. Any dealer will be able to look up the in service date if you give them the VIN. Again just something to think about and/or explore.

ilovemangoes

I think it's a bit different here in up north, we don't get such a long warranty period. I did try to phone up a local acura dealer, and they told me they will get back to me with a quote once they put together some numbers, but seems like they have no interest in dealing with me as it has already been 3 days. I called up a buddy of mine at another Acura dealership, and the lowest price they can get me on a rebuilt tranny w/ 2 years warranty is $3000 + tax, definitely not a bad deal being at a dealership but it's quite sad to see how Canadians seem to get screwed over by stealerships more than our fellow Americans. Americans seem to get a longer warranty period and also their transmission replacements are good for a 3 year/40,000 mile period, whereas everything up here are more expensive and whatnot.I doubt any dealership will be willing to cover all or part of the cost under goodwill as they will most likely blame it on the mods even though I only had them on for less than a month.....not counting the 2 weeks that I was sick meaning the car was not driven at all.

NBP04TL4ME

Didn't know you were that far north........ Would it be worth a trip to a US dealer?? Again just a though and may not work.

LaCostaRacer

Do you think he used the factory Z1 or DW1 fluid? My guess is he put some crap fluid in your tranny and that is the reason for these problems. While not stated in the service manual, the every 20K change interval is a good idea- but not if the car gets a subpar ATF refill.

DMZ

But how often one changes the fluid can !
.
.

ilovemangoes

I'm guessing it was some subpar ATF fluid that he used, so possibly the fluid was burnt out quicker than expected. It's such a headache right now as to what I should do with the car. Do you think Acura dealers will accept my car as a trade-in in its current condition? I am debating whether I should trade it in for a 2012 TL and have every service done at Acura to avoid any future issues with the usage of wrong fluids.
I really like my 3G and was expecting it to reach 100k KILOMETERS without any issues, but with a $3000+ repair bill this time, I really can't afford to have anything else go wrong with it.

ZOMGVTEK

Did you ever check the fluid? Aprox level and color? Unless the car is on a severe angle, the level will be kinda close. If its in between the upper and lower marks it should work fine. If nothing shows up on the dip stick, you might be able to get by with simply pouring some more in and hope for the best. I know a guy that ruptured transmission lines and drove the thing until it stopped, twice. It still works. However, If you see any fluid on the dipstick, the trans is probably cooked internally and in need of replacement. It only takes a few QT's for the transmission to have enough pressure to work. It takes a whole lot more than that for the thing to work properly, but it will work to some extent dramatically under filled.

Most dealers will probably take the car in on trade, but they won't likely give you very much for a non-functional car... You'd be better off getting the transmission rebuilt at some super cheap place and then trading it in afterwards.

ilovemangoes

I'm on a 30-40 degree slope, so that's why I haven't checked it yet. Seems like doing a flush will temporary fix the situation, not sure if I should go that route first but hopefully I can fix my garage (door busted) and perform a check on the fluid soon.

I hate cars

If you can't check the fluid because you're on a slope, at this point it's fine to blindly throw a quart in there. It's not enough to hurt anything or cause leaks, even if it's already full.

Even if you can't check the level you should remove the dipstick and look and check it for color and smell.

If it's low on fluid it will be worse when cold, get better when hot. I believe yours is the same or worse when hot, right? If so, it's probably not the fluid level.

You can get lucky once in a while although I have a feeling you're looking at a new trans. I've seen a transmission rebuilt with a cut in the rubber of the reverse servo (it's an internal piston actuated by hydraulic pressure. The truck would creep in reverse but it was a lot of engine revving with the vehicle barely moving. In this case there was too little pressure caused by the cut to really engage the clutches and they survived. If the trans goes low on fluid, you can only hope it transitioned from low to too low quickly if you have a chance of it being ok. Checking the dipstick should always be the very first thing you do.