I bought a 2002 Civic about a month ago. (68k miles) I've been having problems with delayed shifting (automatic transmission), especially when shifting into 3rd and 4th gear. The shift takes about 2 seconds to complete, so if I'm accelerating quickly, the engine revs to high RPMs between shifts. The problem is most pronounced when the transmission is cold. It's hardly noticeable after it reaches operating temperature.

The cruise control also has not been working since I bought it. I'm not sure if these two problems could be connected or not, because when I try to use cruise control, the transmission shifts down.

I recently had the transmission flushed and the filter changed. Does anyone have any idea what might be causing the delayed shifting?

 

Wow. So she turns you onż sweet. Slightly impressive, especially in a honda

 

lmfao, this is awesome.

OP, I think you mean "erratic"... not erotic. Perhaps you should look them both up in a dictionary and you'll see why we're laughing.

And as far as your problem goes, I don't have good news there. 01 and 02 (and perhaps more, I'm not sure) civic automatic transmissions are TRASH. It not even of a matter of IF it will die, its a matter of WHEN. There's been tons of complaints to Honda, I think even a couple lawsuits, and they've refused to do anything about it.

I think the manual transmissions are better. Perhaps look into either doing a manual swap (not sure how hard that is in that particular generation of civics) or getting a new car. I mean, you could replace it with another automatic transmission... but they don't make new ones. So you'd be buying a used or rebuilt one. Which means it WILL die on you again.

 

Laughter aside, this one only has 68K miles on it. Even for the 01-05 transmissions, that's still too low IMO to be running into those kinds of problems...

 

Thread title changed.

The revving between shifts would be the transmission slipping. Either the clutch packs are worn down and you'll essentially need a new transmission (having a remanufactured transmission installed is actually cheaper than rebuilding it for the most part) or the line pressure is low and the transmission can't hold. Basically, check your transmission fluid. If it's low, add some fluid. If it's not, unfortunately you'll more than likely need a new transmission.

You could say the same of any automatic transmission; anything you do to it (services, fluid exchanges, filter replacements, etc) is simply delaying the inevitable transmission failure.