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Torque converter slipping?

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voodoojc

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My friend is planning on purchasing a 2001 Acura TL with about 141k miles on it. When u floor the gas, the engine revs close to redline, but only a little bit of the power is transmitted to the wheels until you release the gas a little. If you gradually push the gas all the way down, then the car takes off fine. This only happens when stomping on the gas. Is this a torque converter problem, or something else?
 
Usually it's not the torque converter but the bands in the transmission itself. Sounds like it's time for a rebuild on that transmission regardless.
 
How serious is the problem? What will eventually happen? This car will be driven by a girl for daily 5 mile commute. How much life is left in the transmission?
 
Well as long as she isn't flooring it all the way to work it'll probably keep going for a bit. For how long, nobody knows.
 
voodoojc said:
How serious is the problem? What will eventually happen? This car will be driven by a girl for daily 5 mile commute. How much life is left in the transmission?
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It is just a phase it is going through. The next phase is "you can sit by the side of the road and wait for a tow truck" phase.
I don't care how good looking the car is or how nice the deal, run away unless you have 1500 to spare to fix it.
 
Why would anyone buy a Honda with a slipping trans?

Run away. Unless they will knock a whole bunch off for transmission repairs.
 
Clutch packs slipping like mad?

In any case, I would count on the fact something expensive tranny related is going to bomb very soon.
 
There was a recall put out by Acura for 2001-2003 models (maybe more, I'm not 100% sure). People that were within the mileage limits had their replaced, sometimes two or three times. I'd recommend staying away, unless you know a good shop that can do a rebuild warrantied for the next 100k miles.
 
Or, the transmission may simply be extremely low on fluid -- you get slow to engage and slipping symptoms from that as well.

Which isn't a good thing either, come to think of it.
 
It could be that the stator clutch in the TC is slipping but only significantly so under full power. Could also be problems inside the transmission unit itself (clutch packs, etc).

Tell your friend to stay away from that car; it has a transmission replacement in its relatively near future.

ZV
 
There's just no way that it would be smart to buy that car. We're not talking about a rare car if she really has her heart set on that model. Just find another one that isn't going to cost her $5000 to make run properly.
 
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