NullPointer

I have a 2003 Accord 4-cylinder with 51k miles. Driving home today, the car lurched then hesitated a few seconds after accelerating out of park. I parked again, turned off the car and tried it again. Same thing happened, but this time there was a grinding sound coming from right below the gear shifter after I put it into drive. Also, once I was in drive the dashboard indicators for gears D3 and D2 flashed on and off while the light for D was also on. Reverse gear has no problem. One time the grinding also happened in park.

I'm hoping it's a problem with the gear shifter module but dreading that it will be the transmission (seems to early for it to go at 50k miles).

Any ideas?

BLKFLSH

You could get someone to retrieve the transmission codes, and pray it's something else, but grinding sounds give me a queasy feeling.

NullPointer

It's at the dealer now, so I assume they will look at the codes. The check engine light came on as well as the light saying that the battery isn't being charged.

Grinding might not even be the right word - kind of like a very rapid clicking. Whatever it was, it didn't sound good. I also thought I faintly smelled an electrical burn smell after hearing the clicking/grinding.

The sound was directly under the shifter, not from under the hood. I'm hoping that reduces the likelihood of it being the tranny.

NullPointer

The dealer calls today and says they can't start the car. Apparently the immobilizer is enabled so the engine will crank but not turn over. The battery failed a stress test, so now I got a new one. Now it only turns over sometimes. They're going to look into it more on Monday, hooking it up to some computer that reads all the sensors.

Weird electrical problems give me hope that it's not the tranny.