I started having this strange problem with my transmission after I got my timing belt done. The car seems to have a hard time accelerating off the line like the transmission is slipping. Then, it clunks into gear after about 2 seconds and it shifts through all the other gear smoothly all the way into highway speeds. Once it clunked into gear hard and my D4 light start blinking and the check engine light came one.

I took it to honda, who said it was the engine mounts. I took the car to a mechanic friend of mine who confirmed it was the engine mounts and said there's nothing wrong with my tranny. He said just have honda do it. I got two of them done for $600 at honda. This seemed to relieve the problem temporarily, but then it started happening again. I took it back to honda, who said that it's probably the tranny and it will be $1700 to fix it with 25% being paid for by the honda corp.

Anyone have any input / advice on this issue?

 

I had a similar problem. My car would chirp 1st almost every time and couldn't launch. I replaced the rear engine mounts and that got rid of the problem. If you drive hard and they left a bad mount in, you could easily have cracked the new ones. Recheck the mounts as well as the tranny mounts. This can also throw off alignment as this recently happened on my friends' civic. $600 is steep, but it is a dealer price.

year/trim/doors/tranny in the signature will get people to help you!!!!

 

Thanks for the advice! I just checked my honda bill and they only replaced the passenger side and front engine mounts. I took a look at the rear mount and it's definitely cracked. That's probably the one I needed fixed to solve this problem. Looks like honda got me again! I guess I'll try to find ahonestmechanic to fix this. It's pretty tough in NJ...

 

I got mine done at Wayne Transmission on Rt. 23 ..... that was a long time ago, and I know what you mean about finding an honest mechanic in NJ. I have a guy in West Caldwell that is prety fair and gives a discount for cash, but he overcharged my mother for brakes which kinda pi$$ed me off (the shop, not my mechanic). Since, I've been working on having the mechanic do side work without the shop that he works for. If you plan to come up north to fix this, PM me and I'll see what I can do for you .... or try to find a mechanic down there that is familiar with the problem. Ask how much to diagnose and repair what is most likely a lock-up solenoid.

 

you guys are missing 2 very important clues here..

# 1 .. ( d4 lite blinking ) a bad mount is NOT going to cause that
# 2 .. it is a v6 Honda had a lot of issues with v6 trannies 98-01

If you think that the rear kount will fix this issue you will be very diasappointed

from reading your info , it sounds to me that you got tranny issues as well, But need to have it properly diagnosed

 

good call on the D4 light ..... I missed that.

As for the expensive tranny repair, I was trying to rule out anything cheaper, but again I missed the light which usually indicates larger problems from what I've read.

on the plus side, if you do need a new tranny, this would be a good time to throw in the Dr. Evil if you have a spare 5g's lying around!!! I just got it priced last week! Too much for me!

 

I talked with my mechanic friend and he says that the rear mount might still be causing my d4 blinking light. He says that is activated whenever any transmission hiccup occurs. Mine actually only came on one day and on my nextstartup, it was back to normal. This was about 4 months ago. It is possible that my tranny is the problem though. But why would that be happening only in 1st gear and not all the gears if it is the tranny?

 

If it's the lock-up solenoid, when you stop and the tranny is locked to the engine, the engine will stall. The jolt from the start of the stall could make the solenoid work temoarily which would be why your engine is not dying ..... if this is in fact the problem. In other gears, the tranny is moving and even though it is not working properly, you might not notice because there is not a stall condition. If the mount can cause the light (desert ... is this possible?), then I'd get that fixed and see if there is still a problem. Regardless, I'd install a tranny cooler and filter (I'm doing that in the next couple of weeks). There are tons of threads here and on v6performance.net for the cooler upgrade.

 

I posted this in another forum and some people had some different suggestions:

Check the Grounds on the Tranmission
I did my timing belt two years ago and had the same problem. I thought I really messed up the transmission by moving the motor. It turned out I had forgotten to re-attach one of the ground wires. Check all of your wires and see if anything is misplaced or disconnected. Good luck.

another one:

Check all your wiring aroung the transmission housing. Check all the sensors and solenoids to see if they're in good shape or loose. I had similar problems to yours and it turned out to be NOT with the mounts, but that that one of my transmission oil pressure sensors was broken. I found it, replaced it and my transmission slippage in 1st to 2ng gear was solved.

I'm going to check it out this weekend and I'll report back.