2002 civic transmission problems

Hello, My daughter just purchased an 02 Honda Civic with 110,000 miles,
4 cyl. and an auto transmission. The car has been running great until
yesterday when it would rev up between second and third gear. She had
me drive it this morning and it took about a second to shift from
second to third so I told her to take it easy till I checked around on
it. Checked the fluid and it is full and looks clean. She called about
two miles from the house and the transmission is now not doing
anything. No forward and no reverse. There were no strange noises or
grinding from the tranny it just quit pulling. Any ideas?

 

Was the fluid ever changed? If yes, did you put genuine Honda fluid in it?

 

you're going to need to pull the diagnostic code from the ecu on this
one. it could be something relatively cheap & simple like a solenoid or
even loose lead connection. or it could be a new transmission. the
code should tel you pretty much what you need to know. a reader costs
less than $100 these days - comparable to what the dealer will charge to
do exactly the same thing, and you'll then own the tool.

 

yeesh. a 3 year old car with 110k miles on it? sure hope it was cheap!
sounds like the torque converter on its shot.

 

My wife knows the people that purchased this car new and the only
thing they have ever done to it was change the motor oil every few
thousand miles. They have had zero problems with it. Really has me
puzzled and of course all the Honda service centers are closed today.

 

I am hoping for something simple (aren't we all). The fluid looked,
smelled and felt good and I know the car has never been mistreated. I
have done a lot of reading today on the Honda cars and I see a lot of
people complaining of transmission problems. It was purchased cheap
enough that if it does need a couple thousand in repairs we can do it
and dump it to get a Ford or Chevy that I know will go 160 or 170K
without any big surprises.

 

You cannot go by looks and smell alone. Since you said in your other post
that you are aware only of oil changes, I am NOT going to assume that the
tranny fluid was ever changed. The interval should be 2 years or 30,000
miles, whichever comes first.

Those tranny problems are limited to a handful of Hondas with V6 engines
mated to 4-speed automatics (from about '98 to '02). Honda extended the
warranty on the tranny on those cars to 7 years or 100,000 miles, or
something like that. Newer models have 5-speed automatics which, as far as
I know, have been fine even despite a recall a couple years ago. When mated
with 4-bangers, Honda auto trannies are bulletproof. I have never heard of
a tranny failure on a 4-cylinder Honda that was properly maintained.

I hate to break this to you, but Fords and Chevys (especially non-V8 models)
usually experience more non-routine problems than Hondas do, especially when
they are at least 5 years old and the mileage gets up there. You'd be lucky
to get that kind of mileage with few problems. In fact, Fords have a higher
rate of transmission failures than Hondas do. But unlike Honda, Ford
refuses to acknowledge and fix the problem.

 

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She may be able to drive it a bit if she starts out in D1, then manually
shifts it. You need to be sure that the idiot lights are all working.
Perform the 'Lamp Check' as described in the Owner's manual to be sure
the Malfunction Indicator light isn't actually trying to tell you
something. 110,000 miles it 177,000 Km. I'd have changed that tranny
fluid at least three times (twice each time) by now if i was the
Original owner.

Let us know how it goes. 'Curly'

 

I tried the different positions on the shifter and it does noting.
Does not even try to pull forward or reverse. When I drove it this
morning it did not slip even between second and third. It was like it
was going into freewheel for a second then catching good and solid.
When it quit on her this morning it had shifted from second into the
freewheeling and never shifted up or down again.
Just talked to the original owner a few hours ago. He said he did all
the oil changes himself but had the Honda dealer do the transmission
servicing at 30, 60 and the last at 90k (give or take a thousand) so it
has been serviced.
Was kind of hoping this might be something someone had experienced
before and could give us an idea of what to expect from the dealer.
I will see what happens next week and post the results. Thanks guys

 

Letting everyone know what happened. Just got off the phone with
Cottman transmission and he told me it was a solenoid that had failed
and burnt up the transmission. 14 hundred bucks. A fail safe of some
kind sounds like a good idea on some of these components now days. I
guess ya cant win them all.

 

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Who the heck is Cottman transmission? (are they big where you are?) The
dealer has all the TSB's and diagnostic tools that are UNIQUE to Honda
trannies. You might do WAY better at a honda dealer.

'Curly'

 

how does the solenoid burn out the whole transmission??? if the
solenoid is not switching to activate the clutch pistons, how can the
clutches burn out? it's just in a "forced" neutral.

unless you want to pay for a dealer diagnostic, for the price, it's got
to be way cheaper to replace the solenoid and take a pretty good stab at
that curing the problem than having someone give you a phone diagnosis
and talk you into a $1400 bill.

 

The reason I went with Cottman instead of a Honda dealer. I called the
dealer first and talked to the service manager. After describing the
problem I asked him what he thought. He said "That sounds bad" I then
asked him what it might cost. He said they could find out what was
wrong with it by putting it on the machine but that they did not work
on transmissions there, all they could do was replace it with a rebuilt
transmission and it would run $3,500.00. So my choices were getting
ripped by Honda for 3,500 or possibly getting the shaft from Cottmans
for 13 to 18 hundred. She gets a 12 month 12,000 warranty so she can
drive it for 11 months and then dump it for a better brand.

 

no need to slag the whole brand because she bought a used lemon. ever
think that might have been the reason the original owner sold her a 2002
so cheaply? ya gets what ya pay for.