Just the other day the car we got just before the new year, a 2001 Honda Accord, developed two problems.
The first problem, which I deem far less serious than the second, was a Check Engine light. That is typically a warning with regard to the emissions system. I told Robin to go out and check the gas cap, and lo and behold it was loose. So she tightened it, and I suspect that problem will resolve itself though I will still keep an eye on it. If you have any other input on that, please feel free to share.
The second problem has disaster written all over it. At some point during operation, the D4 indicator on the transmission quadrant on the dashboard starts blinking. Concurrently the car hesitates from a dead stop and it feels like it does not want to engage. I actually rolled the car backwards down a slight incline waiting for it to engage, which it eventually did, but I had to give it the spurs to get it to move forward. It seems like it’s defaulting to a “limp-home” mode.
I have read that this is a common problem with this year of Accord, and that it may be a sign of impending transmission failure. Rather than having that happen, I need to know what it is and what I can do to prevent it in the short term until I can go back to the dealer we got it from and have it fixed under warranty next week. Can I simply top off the transmission fluid for the time being, or do we need to park this thing for a while so we don’t destroy the transmission? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Probably nothing you can do to prevent the inevitable.
If the tans is going to fail in X number of miles, I doubt there is much you can do to at this point to make it last to X+100.
Many different things can set the D4 light to blinking, including various electrical problems, aftermarket alarm system wiring, transmission solenoids, a number of sensors and switches, and of course certain internal transmission problems. Knowing the particular trouble code(s) might shed some light on it, but it will be difficult if not impossible to know what your particular problem is without pertinent test results. I wouldn’t expect driving it in limp-home mode for a few days to make things worse, but I don’t think there’s any way to be sure about that.
I assume you have some kind of third party warranty, since the factory only warranted the transmissions on those for 7 years or 100,000 miles.
The fix for the problem is simply the replacement of the entire transmission. Supposedly by 2005 the transmission was redesigned to resolve the problem.
OK, I checked that website, and my car is definitely covered under the settlement. All I have to do is take it to the local Honda dealership. Apparently, it’s a problem with the torque converter.
So we took the car to the local Honda dealership. They took care of the check engine light; there were some old codes that hadn’t been reset.
The mechanic was unable to replicate the transmission problem, however. He drove it home last night to get it on the highway, nothing. Airman drove it home, nothing. I drove it this evening to the supermarket and back, nothing. So it’s an intermittent failure, which means all we can do is drive it around and if it goes wonky again, drive it straight to the dealership and have them check it while the engine is still running. The mechanic said the error codes in the computer for that fault involve the solenoid or wiring, so it’s probably an electrical problem.