'02 Transmission Shifting Problem when hot

[NesOne]

Hi everyone, my tranny has been acting strange lately. I drive about 80 miles one way to work and back. When I'm getting home, my tranny starts acting weird, revving up real high before shifting into 2nd gear, and into the rest of the gears. The other day, I was on the freeway, and it ended up staying in 1st gear. It wouldn't want to shift out of it. I took it to a nearby shop, and they said that the codes were something that had to do with the hydraulics of the tranny, and that most of the time, it means that the insides are pretty much done, and that I need to replace the tranny.

The weird thing is that the car still drives fine when it's cold, just when it's been driven for a lot of miles, it starts shifting hard into the other gears.

Any thoughts? I just don't want to slap in a new tranny if it's something as simple as an electrical component, or cable adjustment. By the way, my car has 205,000 miles on it, so it has given me a good run so far.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[StealthSonic]

How often do you change the transmission oil? Make sure you are using Honda Z1 oil. They said other type of oil will cause slipage. I'm having the same problem but I can't afford to have it rebuilt/replace so I'm just gonna leave it be.

Check the color of your tranny oil first. See if it's dark or has burnt smell. If it's pink and smell like grease than your fine. Also the level of oil. Park you car on flat surface and at operating temperature. Keep the car on and shift through gear one by one from P to D1 and shift it back slowly to P and you have about 1 minute to check the tranny oil level.

Try tranny fuid treatment like TransX (my mechanic said it's good.) If your tranny is BAXA model, all you need is 2.3 liter of oil. So half treatment and half Honda Z1 mixture. Its important to have the oil at right level. Too much will weaken the gaskets, to little will cause heat. Drain it again in few weeks and fill it up with pure Honda Z1. Hopefully it cleans out all the gunks and lose metals.

Lastly before you have your tranny overhaul, try checking the solenoid. (round things "looks like mushrooms" by the tranny) They also call Shiftlock solenoid. There are 2 sets on the tranny. One controlls gear 1 and 2 and the other set controls 3 and 4. Brand new they cost about $300 each.

That's the cheapest fix you can try before have it overhaul. I checked with local shop and they are around 2k to have it fixed. Unless you are a DIY guy. will probably cost you $900 + 1 day or 2

Hope this help.

[NesOne]

Thanks for the advice, I decided to just go ahead and invest on getting it replaced, and this time I'm going to have it serviced every 15K miles, like the mechanic had originally advised me to do. I had only had the tranny fluid changed once, and that was at about 180K, I know my fault for being such a procrastinator. Total it's coming out to $2300 big ones...

[StealthSonic]

cool, yea that happened to me too. It's my first car and I didn't realize that tranny has oil in it until I drove it for 80k miles plus lol.

[jeffcoslacker]

Yeah usually when they act up after warming up there is a pressure problem, when the fluid comes up to full temp it's too thin to maintain line pressure through the whole hydraulic circuit. Can be from a weak pump, blown accumulator, seals bleeding out, etc...at any rate it's usually big repair, unless pressure test show that one easy to access component is the cause...which is never the case for me.......and usually if it's been running for some time with low pressure everything in it has been overheated and overworked, it's a major failure waiting to happen.

[NesOne]

Well, I have gotten my car back, and it runs great!!!! The company that my mechanic got the tranny from, is called H&A Transmissions (http://www.hnatrans.com/index.htm). For anyone that lives over here in the Antelope Valley, of Southern California I went to a place called Rocco's Honda, and they do great work. The total came out to $2436, and the tranny guys added a filter to the tranny, I guess to help it last longer.

All I know is that from now on I'm taking it in every 15K miles to get serviced, and hopefully never have to go through this again. I even noticed better gas mileage.

[jeffcoslacker]

15K for tranny service is a bit overboard. 25-30 is more than enough. I do mine every 50-60 and never have problems. Most cars run over 100,000 without ever having a tranny service before they develop problems. It's a very neglected service. Make sure they use fluid with the proper Honda spec. Dexron III is compatable with Honda fluid, but can cause some issues. A lot of shops try to put Dex in everything, rather than carry several types...it's a fairly universal fluid.

[NesOne]

Good point, I guess I'm being a bit too paranoid. Since they added a filter I'm going to ask my mechanic to re-recommend the service intervals to me. As far as the fluid, this guy only uses the Honda Z1 oil by Honda. His shop is only for Honda's, so at least I don't have to worry about him trying to slip in a different oil... well at least that I know of...

[jeffcoslacker]

I guess if it's just a partial change, drain the case and fill with the 3-4 quarts in there it would be cheap insurance...I'm used to GM trannies that hold 7-8 quarts and have an internal filter...that can get expensive if you do it too often, at $100 each time or so...

But to drain and fill a Honda case, and spin on a new remote filter shouldn't cost much more than an oil change, only difference the cost of the Z1. So do whatever he reccomends if that's the case...he knows them better than me, sounds like

[StealthSonic]

When I talk to few mechanic about my problem first thing they told me is to check the oil and etc. they wouldn't peak at my tranny. But there is a recall about tranny on certain year. I'm gonna try aftermarket tranny radiator that you can buy off Kragen. Let see what happen.