torque converter failure

That's a pretty general question. There may be a lot of dependency on the state of the transmission fluid, and whether the converter is designed to sometimes run in partially-locked mode. My understanding is that Chrysler's ATF+4 was formulated for partial lockup.

My '87 K-car's transmission gave no warning before it pretty much stopped shifting gears. The problem was that some converter clutch material had gone into the fluid and all over the place and played havoc with the valve body. I didn't even have any slippage symptoms.when this happened. So you might want to have the transmission worked on right away....at least disable the lockup feature if you need to keep driving the car.

i guess that's my question - what is supposed to happen.

i have two of these things, so compare and contrast is easy. on one, the lockup clutch is starting to slip on hills, the other is not. in all other respects, the car is fine. but i have read about partial lock-up mode - honda calls it "control mode", so i was wondering. transmissions fluids are great, no debris, pink and unburnt, and besides the fact that the other car behaves different, i'm convincing myself that this is a progressive problem that's getting worse. mileage is just under 200k.

This can probably be accomplished by either jumpering or cutting a wire to the trans ECU.

Had a Ford Aerostar van that had a bad shudder around 60 up a slight grade with the TCC engaged. TCC was starting to slip. I changed the trans. fluid, went away, never came back. Old fluid smelled fresh, no discoloration. Just my .02, but it might be worth a try.

Garrett Fulton

yeah, i already tried that. smoothed out the shifting a little, but hasn't affected lockup clutch slip.

further to the "control mode" thing, a friend [control engineer] tells me that some manufacturers use p.w.m. on their lockup solenoid valves to actually cause slippage in certain situations. curiouser and curiouser. need to do some more homework.

in the mean time, if anyone knows how long a honda civic torque converter usually lasts, that would be good to know.

I saw some reports of torque converter failure at honda-tech.com that might give you an inkling. Seems like I saw a few CRX's a couple years older than yours failing per posts a couple years old.

Go to honda-tech.com, click on search then advanced search, put in {torque converter slip} or similar, restrict your search to the CRX group.

Have no idea.. Daughter in law has a hybrid Civic of about 8 years age, and she started having a little trouble with the tranny.. They sold my son a tranny flush, and -believe it or not- it cured the problem.

Regular tranny convertors are likely totally different.

I drove this car last week, by the way. It was no way as quiet as it was when they bought it,but still gets 48-54 mpg..