SupraGuy
Well-Known Member
Seems like it's not that rare a story, but the auto transmission in my '99 Accord is completely and utterly done.
There are a few electrical gremlins to the car, but I've gotten used to them. Sometimes the climate control doesn't turn on, so I can't change the temperature or vent selection (Pull the control board from the clock opening, and it'll work.) The seat belt warning lamp and coolant temperature gauge sometimes stop working. A slap to the dash above the right side of the cluster usually solves that, but both show problems with cold solder joins in the electronics.
I guess I can't complain too much, I bought the car cheap, and it got me around for a while, but starting in the early summer of '17, it started not liking it much if I got back on the gas just before coming to a full stop, sometimes if I started to accelerate immediately after (Like coming to a red light, and the light turns green just before you actually stop.) It would shift to first needlessly hard. Interim solution, don't do that. let it shift to first before touching the gas pedal.
That fall, it got worse of course. Sometimes it simply would not go into first gear when cold, but it was the same as before once the transmission warmed up. So long as I took it REALLY easy for the first while after letting it cool, maybe 4-6 blocks, then it was okay.
Right around the first snow, it didn't matter what I did, 1, D3 or D4 was no good from a start, but it would start okay in 2. Once I got to about 20km/h or so, I could bump it into D4 and it would be okay. In many ways this was better than before, since it would work fine right from a start. I made it through the winter that way.
Mid-summer, 2018, for whatever reason, it got better for a while. It started working in D4 like normal, not even clunking from the start. (I discovered by accident when forgetting to shift back to 2 with the car stopped in traffic. I didnt' expect it to last, but I thought that at least it wasn't getting worse. Most of the time I still bumped it down to 2 at a stop anyway. (This pretty much pinpointed the accumulator, since the first gear clutch wasn't going to fix itself ever, for any reason.)
Fall, first gear stopped engaging again. Maybe it still would have sometimes, but it never did if I tried it.
Sometime in November, things took a turn for the worse. 2 wasn't working first thing in the morning, unless I let the car warm up in reverse for a few minutes. The colder the weather, the longer I had to let it warm up, but once it worked, it was okay.
Just before Christmas, it would need warming up like that after work, too. I took to starting my car 10 minutes before the end of the day, and letting it run in reverse with the e-brake yanked.
On Friday Feb 8, I only barely made it home. Every time I came to a stop, the transmission would refuse to move the car forwards without taking a stint in reverse against the brakes. I parked it behind the house, and haven't moved it since.
The car has a nice leather interior, heated seats, power sunroof, the A/C works well, it's actually a nice enough car, but without a working transmission it's not much use to me. I don't have an indoor space, so I can't do anything about it for the next 4 months or so, but I have a few options.
1. Sell for parts. Maybe the leather interior is worth something to someone, or other parts. The body is kind of rough, the passenger side fender and mirror aren't colour matched to the car, or for that matter, each other, and there are dents in both passenger side doors (I got it that way. Cheap, remember?) Since I need a car for work, I've already got a replacement DD.
2. Get it fixed. I suppose that I could make some calls and ask what it might cost. I'm guessing that transmission shops might be at least passingly familiar with the problems that seem to plague these things.
3. Find a replacement automatic transmission. I fear that a used transmission is a dice roll though. Hard to say that I won't get something not much better than what I had, but a rebuilt or new one is spendy. Also, it'll be at least 4 months before I can do anything, since I'd have to be working outside.
4. Look for a manual swap. I kind of like the idea, but I don't know that I have the room to do it myself, and I can't see it being something worth paying someone to do. This is probably not going to be what happens in any event.
There are a few electrical gremlins to the car, but I've gotten used to them. Sometimes the climate control doesn't turn on, so I can't change the temperature or vent selection (Pull the control board from the clock opening, and it'll work.) The seat belt warning lamp and coolant temperature gauge sometimes stop working. A slap to the dash above the right side of the cluster usually solves that, but both show problems with cold solder joins in the electronics.
I guess I can't complain too much, I bought the car cheap, and it got me around for a while, but starting in the early summer of '17, it started not liking it much if I got back on the gas just before coming to a full stop, sometimes if I started to accelerate immediately after (Like coming to a red light, and the light turns green just before you actually stop.) It would shift to first needlessly hard. Interim solution, don't do that. let it shift to first before touching the gas pedal.
That fall, it got worse of course. Sometimes it simply would not go into first gear when cold, but it was the same as before once the transmission warmed up. So long as I took it REALLY easy for the first while after letting it cool, maybe 4-6 blocks, then it was okay.
Right around the first snow, it didn't matter what I did, 1, D3 or D4 was no good from a start, but it would start okay in 2. Once I got to about 20km/h or so, I could bump it into D4 and it would be okay. In many ways this was better than before, since it would work fine right from a start. I made it through the winter that way.
Mid-summer, 2018, for whatever reason, it got better for a while. It started working in D4 like normal, not even clunking from the start. (I discovered by accident when forgetting to shift back to 2 with the car stopped in traffic. I didnt' expect it to last, but I thought that at least it wasn't getting worse. Most of the time I still bumped it down to 2 at a stop anyway. (This pretty much pinpointed the accumulator, since the first gear clutch wasn't going to fix itself ever, for any reason.)
Fall, first gear stopped engaging again. Maybe it still would have sometimes, but it never did if I tried it.
Sometime in November, things took a turn for the worse. 2 wasn't working first thing in the morning, unless I let the car warm up in reverse for a few minutes. The colder the weather, the longer I had to let it warm up, but once it worked, it was okay.
Just before Christmas, it would need warming up like that after work, too. I took to starting my car 10 minutes before the end of the day, and letting it run in reverse with the e-brake yanked.
On Friday Feb 8, I only barely made it home. Every time I came to a stop, the transmission would refuse to move the car forwards without taking a stint in reverse against the brakes. I parked it behind the house, and haven't moved it since.
The car has a nice leather interior, heated seats, power sunroof, the A/C works well, it's actually a nice enough car, but without a working transmission it's not much use to me. I don't have an indoor space, so I can't do anything about it for the next 4 months or so, but I have a few options.
1. Sell for parts. Maybe the leather interior is worth something to someone, or other parts. The body is kind of rough, the passenger side fender and mirror aren't colour matched to the car, or for that matter, each other, and there are dents in both passenger side doors (I got it that way. Cheap, remember?) Since I need a car for work, I've already got a replacement DD.
2. Get it fixed. I suppose that I could make some calls and ask what it might cost. I'm guessing that transmission shops might be at least passingly familiar with the problems that seem to plague these things.
3. Find a replacement automatic transmission. I fear that a used transmission is a dice roll though. Hard to say that I won't get something not much better than what I had, but a rebuilt or new one is spendy. Also, it'll be at least 4 months before I can do anything, since I'd have to be working outside.
4. Look for a manual swap. I kind of like the idea, but I don't know that I have the room to do it myself, and I can't see it being something worth paying someone to do. This is probably not going to be what happens in any event.
