So I have this 1998 Civic...

It has an auto transmission - because that's relevant here, I promise.

Anyway. It was an extremely hasty purchase because I needed a car to get me home from VA to WI (leave time. I moved from Pearl Harbor)... I ended up making a huge mistake and spent 2k making sure it was good to go for the long trip. That sucked.

It's been good for three months since I bought it (except for an exploding oil seal. Bleh) until today.

I was driving home from work and when I stopped at the stop sign outside my house (thank God it was there!) the car just dropped into neutral with no warning. I just revved the engine.

I ended up having to Park, Turn car off, and restart to get it to work. Afterward I made a turn around in a driveway to park in the street but... the car decided it didn't want to shift into drive after the reversing into the street... again I turned the car off and restarted...

Can anyone provide any insight before I take it to the dealer? I'm really hoping I don't hear them tell me the tranny needs rebuilding or something. The car will be gone in that case...

Oh. I checked all fluid levels and they're all good. There has been no oil/tranny fluid (tranny fluid just doesn't sound right...) spots anywhere in my driveway. I ran the car for a while to look under the hood and heard nothing of note. A slight whine that was intermittent, but nothing interesting.

Thanks!


Oh yeah. Important info.

The car has about 120k miles on it - I'm not really certain because the odometer broke at 12499 I haven't experienced any problems while shifting (no stuttering, joltyness, etc) previously. the car has been running a little rough (more vibrations than usual) but I figured it was normal...

It's been a while since I wrenched on a civic but my go to answer for that type of thing would be to reset the ecu by pulling the backup fuse/disconnect battery and if that doesn't help then double check the vacuum lines for leaks. That is all I can think of at the moment that would be cheap and easy. Beyond that you can look into sensors or changing fluid but that may be spending money without a return. I would call some yards to check prices on a transmission, you may be surprised at how cheap they can be. I've had the unfortunate pleasure of changing a few....

If you have no idea of its history and true milage, change the trans fluids and filter. I had a tbird that started shifting like deal and seemed like the tranny was shot at 70k. Turns out there was a recall on the original fluids from that year. Changed and worked like new. No, not quite the same, but it shows a fluid change can really make difference

Call Car Talk? Take it to a garage? Just sayin'

Metal parts in the transmission. My civic is DONE.

Going to look for a new car this week...

I always thought Japanese cars went like 700,000 miles?

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wildwest450 said:

I always thought Japanese cars went like 700,000 miles?

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Click to expand...

Only if treated right.



This is a 2006 model, mind you.

For future reference (maybe you did this but worded it differently) it is not only the transmission fluid level, but the condition (color) of the fluid. The fluid should be pink.

Did I say "fluid" enough?



















FLUID!

Replace the transmission fluid with Tiger blood and adonis DNA and you'll soon be WINNING!!!

RMitch said:

Only if treated right.

This is a 2006 model, mind you.

Click to expand...

You should have photoshopped your check engine light out when you were doing the mileage.


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You can photoshop mileage, but you can't photoshop dignity...

That's not photoshopped. The owner uses the car for work, and drives across state...about 300-miles per day.

http://www.8thcivic.com/forums/mech...t/96765-500-000-miles-still-going-strong.html