the car is a 1999 acura cl 2.3. with an automatic tranny. 136k on car and tranny. this is my girlfriend's car and she has been noticing something. today she was driving down the highway at a steady speed and all of the sudden the rpms jumped and the tranny downshifted while she was driving and she had not moved her foot on the gas pedal at all. my guess is i've got tranny problems. i want to do an auto-rx treatment and a professional tranny flush to see if it will help. questions are...
just add the auto-rx to the tranny and drive 1,000 miles than have the professional flush?
and
what if i can not change the filter? the filter on these trannys are internal and you need to drop the tranny to get at it.
RockAuto Part's website says that the transmission must be removed and disassembled to change out the filter. Sounds like too much work to me.
While it's is a good idea to routinely change the transmission fluid (with something approved by Honda / Acura) ARX can help clean out any built up contaminents. The problem she is experiencing could be electronic in nature. A repair manual should list a procedure for testing the lock-up and shift control solenoid valves.
I think I would seek out an Acura forum to see if this problem has a known frequency of occurrence and a known cause/remedy. If the default answer is that the trans had to be rebuilt, without really determining the root cause of the anomaly, then an attempt to clean up some fouled component wouldn't be out of order.
- if you have a drain plug on your transmission, drain as much as will come out (probably 1/2 of total capacity or so) then add new fluid and autorx to get back up to level, and 1000 miles later do a full flush
- if there is no drain plug, add auto rx and 1000 miles later do a full flush
