I went out the other day, and after getting a few miles out, as I was heading up a hill, I didn’t have any power. The car kept slowing and slowing. When I pressed harder on the gas, nothing happened. But it wasn’t the engine. If I put it in neutral, I could rev the engine up, no problem, but in 3rd or 4th gear it was like there was a governor on the engine. It wouldn’t go over about 3,000 revs. (In first or second gear it seemed to run more or less normally.)
When I got on level ground, it would slowly pick up speed, but still with this governor effect: I couldn’t accelerate past a certain point. And on any incline, it just slowed.
So it’s not the clutch slipping, because the engine doesn’t rev up while the car is going at a constant speed. It doesn’t seem to be the engine itself, since under no load it will run up to redline. So it has to be something with the transmission.
I don’t know much about auto transmissions. Do you?
Well, anecdotally, when I tore the bottom of my car out :eek: , I went for approximately 1 mile before the transmission failed from lack of fluid. Just like you, I could rev the engine in neutral, but any sort of load on what was left of the transmission had no results.
Check your fluid level. You may have a leak. That’s the most obvious and easiest solution. After that, though, you’re on your own.
Well, I know enough about automobiles in general to offer a sizable wager that your transmission has nothing whatsoever to do with the problem.
Every word of your description of the symptoms indicates a lack of power from the engine. And don’t be fooled by the fact that “under no load it will run up to redline;” any gasoline engine will run up to redline under no load while using only a tiny fraction of its rated power.
Based on your words, I’d guess that there’s a problem in the fuel system somewhere, and that includes the air flow. Possibly a bad fuel pump, clogged fuel filter, or plugged air filter. The first thing I’d check is the fuel filter(s), then the air filter, then the fuel pump.
When I saw “Honda” I automatically assumed that the transmission was shot. But after reading the post, I’d say your power loss is something else.
In my experience with 80s Hondamatic transmissions, they tend to stop shifting automatically…otherwise they work fine, as long as you manually drop it into 1st gear then push up to 2nd, then Drive…sometimes they only work in 1st and 2nd and never go into 3rd…or 4th in an overdrive.
When mine started doing this, it turned out to be the fuel filter. Easiest way to tell, is the next time this happens, pull over, shut the car off for about 15 minutes or so, and then start it back up. If the car runs fine, then it’s most likely the fuel filter. It could also be bad gas, or clogged injectors.