Hello civic forums. I have my honda hatchback that i bought a few years ago and it has been an extremely reliable vehicle. The vehicle has an automatic transmission. When i bought the car, it used to shift at a high speed for example from 1st to 2nd the vehicle had to be going about 15-20 and at the same time let go of the gas and it would jerk pretty hard. if i keep the foot on the gas pedal it would shift from 1st to 2nd in the 20-25 mph range. the 3rd gear shifts in at 35-40mph with a smaller jerk and so forth. recently i have replaced the transmission fluid and it has helped the vehicle run a bit smoother however, the jerk when the car shifts can still be felt specially from 1st gear to second. I did notice that the car has to rev up pretty high, i do not know the exact rpm but it sounds like the engine was to shift pretty bad. The vehicle has 210k miles on it and the engine is the stock 1.5L. The first thing that comes to my head is that the transmission mount might be bad and that is why the jerk occurs when shifting but at the same time i think it is also the shifting cable(link #1). Have you guys experience this problem? do you guys know how to fix it? or it could be that the car is just old and that is how age and wear has affected the vehicle. Thank you for your advice in advance.

 

Long and the short of it is the trans is probably toast. Honda auto trans are different from the traditional auto trans pretty much everyone else uses. Lack of maintenance that auto trannies get from people combined with Hondas design makes them the prone to failure. fluid changes can only help so much but the trans has a bunch of wet clutches that are probably worn out.

 

The previous owner did not take care of the car at all. The transmission fluid was darker than used up engine oil . I loosen the cable that goes from.the transmission to the throttle body and it did improve the shifting int hat it doesn't jerk as hard as it used to. It still jerks a bit but not as much, maybe a 80% less of a jerk then before the adjustment. Thank you for your reply!! Very likely aomething is damages inside and that is why it continues to jerk. By the way could a trnamission support also cause this jerking?

 

yes engine mounts/trans mounts being broken will also contribute to the harsh shifting feeling. Have someone else hold the brakes hard then put the car back and forth from reverse to drive and press the gas a little when in each gear and see if the engine moves a lot and listen for knocking noises etc.