Honda Prelude Forum - PreludeDriver.com

Within the past month or so, my Prelude has been angry with me and doesn't like to shift. If I let her warm up for 10 minutes before driving, she seems to be fine but if she doesn't warm up enough and I turn onto the hill outside my driveway, she revs to about 5 RPMS, then jerks into gear. This only happens when she's cold. I did have some reddish brown leakage and the shop said the only leak was from an axle seal, but the tranny fluid was full. My Prelude has only 70k miles on and I've been the only owner. Any ideas as to what the problem might be?

When you say "jerks into gear", I assume you mean that it starts moving at that point, not that it jumps from Park into Drive.

That reddish brown fluid is likely tranny fluid. If your axle seals are leaking, you might be losing tranny fluid. Be sure to check the tranny fluid level as specified in the car's manual. I believe it has to be checked when the engine is hot and running.

There's certainly something wrong with the transmission. Potentially the torque converter?

A friend of mine said to check out the torque converter. When I say jerking to gear, this is what I mean: I put the car in drive, not Triptronic, just regular ole D4. As I press on the gas and am moving forward, once the RPMS get up to 3, instead of auto shifting, it just revs until getting to about 5, then the car jerks and shifts into 3rd. For that split second that it' s revving, the car is moving just because it was already in motion, but would imagine there's no extra push. Feels as if you're in park and just revving the engine.

One other thing you can check is the Transmission Control Unit. I believe on your car this is located underneat the passenger side carpet on top of the ECU. It may have an indicator light that blinks indicating a trouble code. There are indexs that tell what these codes mean, although I believe this would generally result in a warning light on your gauge cluster being illuminated as well.

yes in auto trann it is likely to be the torque converter,

Turns out the entire transmission needs replacing....recall was issued years and years ago, I wasn't notified and the extended warranty expired only 5 months ago. American Honda has denied my claim to help replace it.

That's crap! Did they determine what was wrong with it?

They found some burnt fluid, I have a rattling bearing somewhere along with the note "needs transmission" on my bill. I can think of a whole lot better word for this situation than "crap."