so im driving home from work one day and its pretty much stop and go traffic in socal. im about maybe 5 miles from the offramp that i need to get off to get home. when all of a sudden, as traffic starts to increase from 5mph to 20-30mph and still increases slightly, i push my gas pedal to accelerate and my car starts revvin at really high rpms, yet my car is only going 20-30mph. so i push a lil more on the pedal, and still nothing faster. so now my foot it pretty much all the way to the floor and im only going 20-30mph, and whenever i let my foot off the pedal it feels as though the car jus dies and loses all power, only to push down again and achieve the same 20-30mph result. being in heavy traffic, i decide to pull over where its safe. then i went to put my car in park, right after i heard a loud clunk in the passenger side of the engine bay. i get out of my car and see coolant leaking everywhere on the passenger side. funny thing, my temp gauge was normal.

so i had it towed over to pepboys cuz they were the only shop open that late in the evening. they looked at it and couldnt see anything wrong with the car. no hose slippage or breakage, no leaking coolant. just a busted radiator cap. but nothing to explain the loss of power. so the next day i take it to aamco. they test it for a couple days and put it up on the machine. they could not find anything wrong with the car either and could not get the car to reproduce the issue. so i take the car back.

well, of course, no more than 1 1/2 wks later the same thing happens. i just got on the freeway heading to work, no more than a mile later in stop and go traffic, the exact same thing without the coolant leakage and the loud clunk in the engine bay. so i take it back to aamco. they had the car for almost the whole week and they drove the crap out of the car, drove it early in the morning in stop and go traffic, yet they still could not find anything wrong with the car or get it to reproduce the issue. based on what i had described to them, they think its something wrong with the tranny, however, they cant tell for sure without actually opening up the tranny and checkin. basically, i know that without knowing how to fix it, it for sure without a doubt is going to happen yet again. the only question is when.

so as of this point im considering jus buyin a new car because some of the activities i take place in i cant afford to keep going through this issue or endangering others lives. also i drive to and from work everyday about 60 miles and there is almost always traffic, so it would not be too safe to drive in those conditions with the car acting up, let alone i could lose my job.

any suggestions or ideas about any of this???

 

has the fluid been changed in the trans?

 

This could also be a sensor or solenoid problem. Sounds like the transmission is refusing to shift out of second, which may be sort of a limp home mode. Scanning the ECU might reveal something. The transmission codes may not turn on the check engine light. If your check engine light did come on, definitely have the computer scanned.

If it does it again, try putting the shift handle to neutral (with your foot off the gas) then back to drive. It could just be the cable is misadjusted (if that model uses a cable).

AAMCO == All Automatics Must Come Out. Please go somewhere else.

 

not sure if i already mentioned, but i have an automatic.

i do believe that the transmission was flushed just under a year ago. and they said that the fluid had a slight smell to it but nothing serious to cause the issue. the check engine light never came on, it jus happened out of nowhere. also, they did hook it up to scan for codes and nothing came up.

because of my current work situation and certain daily activities, ive decided to play it on the safe side and im going to jus buy a new car. so when all that is said and done i will probably have some pretty new headlights and tailights, catback, and intake for sale.

 

if ur catback will fit a 96-98 spec ek, how much u want for it? i have a 97 hatch lol... that sucks about ur ride man, i would have no idea what would be causing that but its pretty epic that when you take it to a garage, your car seems to act fine.. mine likes to do that alot

 

could a bad master cylinder have any affect on this?