'99 Civic automatic tranmission trouble

Hi All, new to the group. We just picked up a very clean '99 Civic EX
2-door automatic for my daughter's first car. Lately it's been shuddering,
slipping a shifting harshly, mostly when pulling away from a stop. Seems to
run OK once up to speed though. Coincident with this behavior the CEL
illuminates. Retrieving the error code with a scanner reveals a code
"PO730 - Gear Ratio Incorrect" is present. This seems to be consistent with
the poor shifting performance. Any clues as to what's wrong? Automatic
transmissions are scary things as they are usually very expensive to fix.

 

Since you're the second owner the first thing I would do would be to change
the auto trans fluid and make sure to use Honda's stuff. Honda's ATF should
always be used...the Dexron III stuff isn't the same.

 

Thanks, that was my first thought as well, so I changed the fluid and made
sure to use the genuine Honda stuff. That actually seemed to help for a
little while but the problem came back. Recently I've located some
information about changing the fluid several times and then replacing
something called the linear solenoid or some such? What's that all about?

 

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Since you only changed out about a third of the volume of the fluid, it
makes sense to change it at least twice more since you don't know where
that poor sucker has been. Look at the CRV TSB's for more about the
solenoid, as well as the Civics.

'Curly'

 

------------- Sorry, here's the link I forgot to include:
http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/tsb/

 

Don't forget more TSBs located at this relatively new link:
http://www.tegger.com/hondafaq/online-manuals.html
(go about half-way down to EBSCOHost...)

 

Thanks!

 

Well, I'm talking to myself I guess. An amazing story of customer support
to report:
We took the Civic to the dealer that the PO had kept it maintained at and
told them our sad story. I also told them I tried changing the ATF 3 times
and replacing the linear solenoid per TSB 00-012 to no avail. I
communicated to them that as our first experience with a Honda car we were
disappointed in this problem.

The service manager called me later in the day and told me the transmission
was indeed toast and would have to be replaced, she also told me that she
had called American Honda on our behalf and they agreed to replace the
transmission with a factory re-manufactured unit and they would comp the job
100%! Needless to say, my daughter and I were floored, relieved and over
joyed. To beat that they had the job done in 2 days and washed the car too!
As my 18 year old daughter would say: "Honda Rocks!"

 

excellent. now you know why the original owner got rid of it!