torque converter failure

what kind of mileage do others see before a torque converter lockup
clutch will start to slip? victim is a 90 honda crx.

 

That's a pretty general question. There may be a lot of dependency on
the state of the transmission fluid, and whether the converter is
designed to sometimes run in partially-locked mode. My understanding
is that Chrysler's ATF+4 was formulated for partial lockup.

My '87 K-car's transmission gave no warning before it pretty much
stopped shifting gears. The problem was that some converter clutch
material had gone into the fluid and all over the place and played
havoc with the valve body. I didn't even have any slippage
symptoms.when this happened. So you might want to have the
transmission worked on right away....at least disable the lockup
feature if you need to keep driving the car.

 

i guess that's my question - what is supposed to happen.

i have two of these things, so compare and contrast is easy. on one,
the lockup clutch is starting to slip on hills, the other is not. in
all other respects, the car is fine. but i have read about partial
lock-up mode - honda calls it "control mode", so i was wondering.
transmissions fluids are great, no debris, pink and unburnt, and besides
the fact that the other car behaves different, i'm convincing myself
that this is a progressive problem that's getting worse. mileage is
just under 200k.

 

This can probably be accomplished by either jumpering or cutting a wire to
the trans ECU.

 

Had a Ford Aerostar van that had a bad shudder around 60 up a slight grade
with the TCC engaged. TCC was starting to slip. I changed the trans.
fluid, went away, never came back. Old fluid smelled fresh, no
discoloration. Just my .02, but it might be worth a try.

Garrett Fulton

 

yeah, i already tried that. smoothed out the shifting a little, but
hasn't affected lockup clutch slip.

further to the "control mode" thing, a friend [control engineer] tells
me that some manufacturers use p.w.m. on their lockup solenoid valves to
actually cause slippage in certain situations. curiouser and curiouser.
need to do some more homework.

in the mean time, if anyone knows how long a honda civic torque
converter usually lasts, that would be good to know.

 

I saw some reports of torque converter failure at honda-tech.com that
might give you an inkling. Seems like I saw a few CRX's a couple years
older than yours failing per posts a couple years old.

Go to honda-tech.com, click on search then advanced search, put in
{torque converter slip} or similar, restrict your search to the CRX
group.

 

Have no idea.. Daughter in law has a hybrid Civic of about 8 years age, and
she started having a little trouble with the tranny.. They sold my son a
tranny
flush, and -believe it or not- it cured the problem.

Regular tranny convertors are likely totally different.

I drove this car last week, by the way. It was no way as quiet as it was
when
they bought it,but still gets 48-54 mpg..