Honda Accord 1997 Auto Transmission Not Engaging

[pau13z]

Hi all, hoping someone can help me.

I’ve got a 1997 Accord (CD5 model, F22B3 2.2l engine) with a 4 speed auto transmission. Last night I was driving down the highway at 100Km/hr with cruise control on, when all of a sudden the engine appeared to disengage from the transmission, and the engine revved up to around 7000RPM. I pulled over and tried to start with a crawl, but the gear didn’t engage. I stepped the car through the gears, and noticed the car didn’t appear to be engaging (No clunk or feel change like you normally get when a gear is engaged from Park). I turned the car off and back on, then 1st gear engaged. I started moving along in 1st, but didn’t shift up to 2nd. I tried going through the gears again with no change. I got reverse to work, but after changing through the gears again, I found that it wouldn’t engage on any gears again until I turned the car off and back on again.

Has anyone experienced this and does anyone have any thoughts as to what’s happened here?

I’m unaware of the service history of the vehicle, we only purchased it a couple of weeks ago and it didn’t have any history with it. It’s done 250,000Km’s. The engine runs quite smoothly, however I have noticed it’s running with poor fuel economy (18l/100km’s) unless I’m on the highway, when it drops down (To around 10.5l/100km’s). I’ve changed the spark plugs and checked for vacuum leaks and everything seems OK there, as I mentioned the engine appears to be running smoothly.

Before this happened, I did notice that the gear changes were quite clunky, and when starting to move from a standstill the car would rev up to around 2000-3000RPM before it really moved much or had any power.

Please help! Cheers in advance!

Topic

[college man]

Check the transmission fluid. someone could have also used the wrong fluid.
see if this helps further.

http://www.ericthecarguy.com/faq/solving-transmission-problems

[pau13z]

Thanks for replying college man. I did check the fluid, the level is OK and it doesn’t look discoloured. When this occurred, I didn’t see any sort of check engine light or any flashing lights on the dash.

Does anyone have any thoughts, going by what I’ve mentioned here and below, as to what the potential cause could, or would not be? At this point I’m assuming it’s a problem with the torque converter or transmission, or potentially both. The issue is that a second hand transmission I’ve been told will be around the $350 (All prices here are in AUD) mark, or up to $1,500 for a reconditioned one. On top of those figures, I’d need to get a new torque converter, which my mechanic is looking into, but guestimated would be around the $400-$600 mark (Probably for a second hand one).

With prices like that being thrown around, if I had something that would definitively indicate that one component would be responsible, or perhaps that one definitely couldn’t be responsible, it would be much cheaper than guessing and costing me a lot :-/

Cheers in advance all!

[Jarrett Whitlock]

Automatic Transmissions are a trick. Sounds to me like Torque converter/valve body/or band issues. Usually band slippages are gradual, where as your issue was quite sudden. Did you check the fluid level hot or cold?

[Daniel]

Did the speedometer act funny before, or while, this happened?
It could be a bad trans or it could just be some sensor or the trans management system.
You may have to take it to a trans shop to get it diagnosed.

[Andrew Phillips]

I would suspect the transmission computer (TCU). They are known for having failures like this.

[Author]

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