Yesterday I just bought an 03 CIVIC LX COUPE with 1.7L L4 PFI SOHC 16V, red with 112,759 mile with an already existing automatic transmission problem. When I start the car, you can hear a slight gear like noise coming from engine bay area. When I depress brake and move shifter to reverse the gear like noise goes away and everything hums perfectly and the car reverses. Then I place the shift in "D" and there is no engaging of the gears to move forward. As if it was in neutral? Then I move shifter to "D3" and the same thing as above. But when I place the shifter in "2" it engages and moves forward with no gear noise, just humming perfectly. As I approach 20 mpr I manually move shifter to "D3" and it shifts and it shifts and the rpm lower like normal as if it were in the normal drive position. At 40 mpr I shift to "D" and every thing is moving fine. But the RPM's are at 3000 at 55 mpr? Is this a internal transmission problem, transmission solenoids or transmission module problem. I hope this is something I can repair, I’m an old school certified back yard mechanic from my USAF machinist days in the 1980’s.

I know I jumped in deep, but the price was right, I paid $600.00 for it! I want to give this to my son who is serving in the USAF as a Fireman and is stationed at Canon AFB New Mexico. And get my 96 Accord back from him. Any help?

 

for huizarroy. When these cars were new under Honda Canada Inc warranty, at the dealers we usually replaced the selonoids as a first diagnosis, which were easy to change as they were external. My choice would be to remove automatic, and replace with a manual conversion, although you got such a good deal on the car you could get the automatic trans rebuilt, and still have saved several thousand.

 

Get a rebuilt tranny and slap it in. The only bad thing is the sub frame on these has to be dropped to do the swap