New to the forums due to a shifting issue with a 1997 Civic I bought recently.

Bought this car about 2 years ago for my daughter and have done the maintenance on it since then but just recently took it over as she and her new husband bought a new vehicle.

Started driving it in the summer with no issues but now that is has gotten colder the car does not want to shift into overdrive. We had a few days where it has warmed up a little and it will shift into overdrive after about 10 miles of driving but when its cold out (less than 40*) it will not shift into overdrive at all. Even after the 30 mile commute home.

I know there are some shift solenoids but would this be the problem or is there some sort of temperature sensor that monitors the transmission temp to regulate shift points?

Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

Edit... The car has 123,xxx miles on it and I have changed tranny oil 2x since I owned it and the level is ok. Did not seem to find this car has a filter. Is this correct??

 

There's no transmission temperature sensor that I know of, but it won't go into overdrive until the engine is fully warmed up. So, does the engine come up to normal temperature and stay there? If not, the thermostat is probably stuck open. If it does you may need a new coolant temperature sensor-- it could be bad and telling the computer the engine is still cold when it is not.

If there's a problem detected with the transmission itself, usually the D4 light will start flashing.

 

Thanks for responding!

The car heats up with no problems very quickly and runs about the same level as it did in the summer, so I'm pretty positive the thermostat is not stuck. The water pump was replaced about 7000 miles ago when I had the timing belt changed so coolant was swapped but not thermostat.

I could change the sensor I suppose and see if that helps. There are no lights at all showing on it.

I forgot to add in the first post that recently I was doing some in town driving so it had warmed up some more I suppose, but when I hit the interstate to head home it kicked into overdrive for a couple of miles then on flat ground it shifted out of overdrive and never kicked back in. It was like after it got some airflow around it, it cooled off and then downshifted again. Don't know if that helps any.

Thanks again!