Hey guys,

I have owned my 1995 Honda Civic DX for about 3 years now. My wife is actually it's primary driver. Up until about a month ago, it always ran nice. At this point, I discovered she hadn't gotten an oil change in a good 8 months, so I tended to that.

It's been parked for I'd say 25 of the last 30 days and has been becoming somewhat of a lemon. In the past month, I've put a new distributor cap on, new spark plugs, new spark plug wires, oil filter, fuel filter, map sensor, and I've cleaned the IACV.

At this present moment in time, I'm off to get a new coolant hose as I pierced one going to the IACV when cleaning it (yesterday).

But it seems the erractic shifting issue isn't resolved. It's an automatic, by the way.

Before I replaced the map sensor and cleaned the IACV, it would react jerkily when trying to shift itself from one gear to the next, and just simply couldn't get above 60kmh (35mph). It would jerk and jerk and not be able to hit that next gear. So I then replaced the map sensor, and it suddenly idles noticeably lower. At this point I figured I better clean the IACV before I adjust the idle any. Even with the new map sensor on, it still doesn't want to shift into that next gear and get above 60kmh. When I rev the engine to higher RPMs (no RPM gauge on car so couldn't tell you how high) while in park, it still clearly has that struggle and I can tell 4th and 5th gear are still going to be off limits.

I'm not a car guy, I'm a 34yr old insulation/drywall business owner. My dad's been in the auto industry for a good 20 years, but even between his suggestions and what I've been able to find online, I'm at a loss as to how to repair this issue, please help!!

Also-- a few weeks ago, it DID used to get up to 80kmh(50mph) if I would strategically make use of the gas pedal (i.e., act like I was driving a stick shift) to get past the jerkiness of it trying to shift.

And-- when I replaced the map sensor, the old (likely original, as the map sensor was) screws got stripped, and I've been unsuccessful in finding new screws that the heads don't snap off on to snugly attach the new one, so I do still have some air leakage from the map sensor. But even applying pressure to it to minimize that leakage and simultaneously cranking the throttle from under the hood, there's still that jerkiness at the higher RPMs. With the new map sensor, it does once again (like just over a month ago) accelerate from 0 properly.

My wife is frustrated as she's been forced to commute via public transit for 90 minutes each way to work daily, rather than a normal 25min drive.

I did not flush the engine when I did the oil change and do wonder if I should have. I have not flushed the tranny, either. But between my father's advise and what little I've found online about my issue, it doesn't seem like doing either would alleviate this issue.

And yes, the check engine light is on, always on for the past month.

Any opinions or help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

That is where you start. What is the code?

Clearly it's a problem with the engine not the transmission.

Don't flush engines or transmissions. Don't put anything into the automatic other than Honda ATF.

 

I've got no idea! I don't have a code reader. I've looked around for one on the cheap, but all I can find are ones that'll work with 1996 or newer cars. Ugh, got a '95.

 

To read the codes on a 95 you just put a jumper wire in the test plug, turn the key on and count blinks of the CEL.