I have a 1998 Civic DX with an automatic transmission. It has a little over 164,000 miles on it and I am the second owner. The car is stock except for an AEM Short Ram intake and a Flowmaster 60 series axle-back muffler. When going up hills, I cannot go any faster than 25 MPH and it will not shift out of second gear. The RPMs shoot up to almost 3,000 and the car gets extremely loud and sounds as if its working just about as hard as it can. I don't dare to floor it to try and get it to downshift, shouldn't it do this on its own? Its been taken to my mechanic a couple of times and he has said the car is in fine shape. Is this lack of power caused by the car being slow as death (1.6L / 106HP) or is there something that doesn't seem right?

 

3,000 rpms lol thats like a high idle i run mine to 7200 rpms..
if your worried have the trans fluid changed... iand its better on the engine to run a higher rpm uphill than in higher gear and low rpm it put more strain on the motor.

think about it like riding a mtn bike uphill you want the lower gear to go up because its eaier on you to pedal.

 

well it is a dx so its motors not that strong.... BUT what kinda hill we talkin about? steep long hill or just weak hill?
if its really doggie first thing i would check is the timing and if thats fine... tune up.
my dx was not a automatic so the 5speed made it feel more powerfull and i could control the care more.

 

my sedan is a dx also.. i'd say your car seems fine .. if you are going down a flat road and it shifts funny then its a problem...

 

If we're talking about big hills, I am pretty sure that's a reason why you have the option of "1" and "2" on the shift selector.

 

Thanks for the replies! While driving on flat ground, the car shifts alright. It does slip between second and third gears, but if I ease up on the gas just before the shift, it doesn't slip at all. The hills I am talking about are rather steep, but not steep enough that any car should have a lot of trouble getting up. On the more gradual hills, I lose power as I go up. I started going up a gradual but long hill and I was doing about 60MPH. Once I got to the top of the hill I was doing just under 50MPH. I got the car inspected before I bought it and the mechanic checked the timing belt and everything else and he said everything looked fine. I've always wondered if putting it in a different gear (I have 2, D3 and D4) would help. I just don't trust shifting this tranny manually.

 

well sounds to me like your tranny might be getting ready to go out.
i would defiantly take it to a good transmission shop and tell them the problems.

 

it sounds normal to me usually you have to give a vehicle more throttle when going up a hill ive got a 97 dx with an automatic and you just have to gas it, not all vehicles have to be babied, but the sliping between 2nd and 3rd you might wanna get checked out

 

I'm going to try and stomp on the gas a bit more and see if that helps. Then I might try driving in one of the other gears and see if it does anything. One more thing, once I hit around 30MPH (3rd gear) there is a rather loud rustling/fluttering sound. I can make it go away by easing off the gas a bit and make it come back by giving it some more gas. I know sounds are hard to diagnose online, but what could that be? My mechanic swears he didn't hear it, but everyone who rides in my car with me hears it.

 

well IMO take it to the tranny shop... if the tranny is slipping there is a problem! if you just hit the gas harder... your going to break it faster!!!!
its not going to just GO AWAY. it could be something as small as it has the wrong transmision fluid in it and needs OEM honda fluid for automatic tranny since thats what you have. a fluid change is definatly the easiest. just remove the tranny drain plug let it drain and when it stops flowing out put it back in and fill it from the top with new OEM automatic honda tranny fluid.
but if that doesnt help the problem then defiantly take it to a tranny shop and ask them to diagnos it and tell them you already changed the fluid with new original honda fluid, and they can work from there.