Honda Accord – difficulty in shifting from P to R

[Stefan]

Hi there:

I have a 1997 Honda Accord with automatic transmission. I’m experiencing difficulty with shifting from Park to Reverse and from Reverse to Park. Shifting through all other gears is quite smooth.

The Honda dealer mentioned it may be some rusting along the shifter cable where it connects to the transmission. To them, the obvious solution is replace the cable. Cable cost is $300 labour #200 so that’s why I’m in this forum looking for more opinions and options.

The questions are:
Has anyone experienced the same issue? If so, what was the cause and solution?

If cable replacement is necessary, where can I get the cable for cheaper? I have the Honda part number so I know exactly what I’m looking for.

Topic

[EricTheCarGuy]

To determine if it’s the cable, disconnect it form the transmission and move the shifter. If it moves normally then, it’s not the cable. It could be an internal transmission problem. If you still have the issue then the cable is likely the problem.

One thing I’ve seen on Hondas is when something gets spilled on the console it can get down into the shifter and gum things up. If this is the case you’ll need to get in there and clean things up with soap and water.

This might also be helpful.

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

Keep us posted and good luck.

[Stefan]

Hi There:

It’s me again. I know I took long and last week was the only time I was able to work on it.

So I did all the checks:
1. Once disconnected, the gear shift lever is working fine
2. once disconnected, the gearbox ‘knob’ moved without any issues. I took a 6″ screwdriver and shifted gears without issues.

So the only issue is the link between them – i.e. the cable. The rotating arm that connects to the gearbox was moving nicely, so the obstruction had to be inside the cable somewhere. I was able to get an original brand new shifter cable from USA at about 50% of the Canadian dealer cost.

The installation took 2 tries. The underside was a bit rusted and even after spraying loads of WD-40, I managed to strip the two bolts that hold the shifter cable to the underside of the car (above the exhaust pipes).

Few days later, after spraying lots of ‘deep creep’ (it’s not me who named the product) and using strip screw removers, everything disassembled nicely. The new cable got installed and now I can shift gears with only two fingers.

YAY – my first car job and the car is still running!!!

[EricTheCarGuy]

Nice work! Well done isolating the problem and performing the fix. Thanks for your updates and for using the ETCG forum.

[Author]

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