[guthriemt]

I just bought a 2000 TL with 155,152 miles on it 2 days ago. 3 owners, clean carfax with loads of maintenance records. The tranny never had the recall work done, "Because it's never had any issues." The last owner has had it for 6 years and has flushed the tranny fluid every 15,000 miles. The engine compartment is clean and this car has obviously been well taken care of. 2 days after I purchased it (today) the car didn't want to shift out of 2nd gear. The check engine light and TCS light came on. The TCS light went out immediately, but the check engine light remained. I pulled over and shut it down, turned it back on and the check engine light was still on. Drove off and it went back to smooth shifting and driving like a dream. Went and had the code pulled and only one code came back P0730. Am I screwed here? I'm really hopin it's just a solenoid of some sort. I'm not going to be a happy camper if I have to turn around a replace the tranny. I have an appointment with the local Honda dealership to have it checked out in a few hours. Before and after it didn't want to shift it drove really nice and smooth, no hard shifting or funky acceleration, just smooth driving. TIA for any help or advice on what to expect.
-Matt

 

[Hondacuraplanet]

Generally, solenoid replacement is usually the root cause on cars with under 40K miles, but I can't say that it's out of the realm of possibility.

Here's how the circuit works....

Hydraulic pressure to each clutch is controlled by the shift valve. The shift valve activates according to the combination of the shift solenoid valves A, B, and C ON/OFF status. Hydraulic pressure supply in D5 range is shown above. The powertrain control module (PCM) computes the actual ratio of mainshaft and countershaft revolutions of the transmission.

If a difference between the actual ratio and commanded gear occurs when shifting to each gear position, a malfunction in the shift solenoid valve or the hydraulic pressure system is detected and the DTC you're getting pops up.

In order to repair the issue, you'll need access to specific equipment that can graph clutch pressures at each gear change. For that, you'll most likely need to bring the vehicle in to a specialty transmission shop, or your Acura dealer.

 

[guthriemt]

I took it to the local Honda/Acura dealership here, and they told me that my tranny is shot and that I need a new one... I honestly believe that they were lying to me and just trying to get me to buy a new tranny, they quoted me at $4,300.00... He said that my fluid was brown and smelt burnt, wasn't like that when I checked it before I brought it in. He also said that the gears were slipping and shifting hard during the test drive. I have yet to feel a single slip or hard shift. I think they were just trying to take advantage of an out of towner. I have an appt with a mechanic that I trust in my home town in a couple days when I get back, so we'll see what he has to say about it. Thanks for the info, it seems to go right along with everything I'm being told by my mechanically inclined friends.