97 accord 4 cylinder automatic.

My buddy knows I am a big honda guy, and his mother had a 97 accord, 4 cylilder automatic. It's a pretty nice vehicle, they take care of things, so i am pretty sure the car has been babied.

Anyway, he told me that tonight he barrowed the car, and when he got ready to use it, he shifted into reverse and instead of hopping into gear the car just whined, similar i suppose to what would happen when you were backing up in my civic. You know that whine sound it makes as the gear's spin up and slow down again.

But the car won't back up, and won't catch the gear. He said it happened a few times in the week he drove it, and said his mother experiences the same thing every once in a while. I wondered if anyone might be able to shed some light on that situation, or maybe has seen it happen to their civic or another car.

I kind of thought it might be the tranny, or a sensor somewhere, or even something minor, I just thought I would give it a shot here and see if someone had an idea. He said drive and the other gears work pretty well, and he checked with a tranny shop and they told him they don't make tranny rebuild kits for honda automatics, apparently, maybe that shop is on crack, I don't know.

If anyone has any ideas I would really love to get him some useful info. Thanks in advance, as always :-)

Stu