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Hello all, I am new to the forum. I am having terrible trouble with figuring out what's wrong with my 2001 automatic Civic. About a month and a half ago, the drive light in the gauge cluster started blinking, and this affected the acceleration of the car from a stop. From a stop, it would accelerate very slowly (almost not at all) until around 30-40 mph. Then, it would shift correctly. So pretty much, first and second gear I'm thinking are not being shifted into by the A/T. So my workaround during this time (albeit an annoying one) is whenever accelerating from a stop, to just manually shift the car into 2 gear. Then, when I reach around 30ish mph or the rpm's get up to around 3000, I shift it into D3, and then D, but at this speed, D3 and D feel the same. So back when this first happened, I scanned the codes. It gave the codes P1768 and P1773. I looked up what they meant and read many forums talking about this issue, so I'm sure the more experienced forum people here know exactly what's going on. I checked the solenoids the codes said were the issue and put the 12 V to them to see if they clicked, and they did. I also read about cleaning the screens on these. So all of the transmission solenoids, I removed, checked, and cleaned the screens. The code still persisted, even after erasing them. The transmission fluid is fine, although it has slowly leaked the entire time I've owned it. It has 202,000 miles now. I got it at around 190,000.

I sorta just gave up hope and didn't do anything else to it, but I continued my research reading about other people's problems similar to this. Suddenly, yesterday, I started it up, blinking D was there, drove it for a minute, and it turned off. YES. I pulled off to test it out on a side street, and it shifted correctly. I was ecstatic. I get to my destination, parked it, shut it off, started it up again just to see, and the blinking D was back, along with the shifting problem. Later in the day, I started it up, no blinking D, immediately shut it off and tried it again, yes blinking D. I waited around 30 minutes to try it again, no blinking D, immediately shut it off and tried it again, yes blinking D. I did this one more time later in the night, same thing.

So it seems that if it sits for a while, it doesn't have this problem? My thought was that this probably something electrical. I just checked the battery, and it is reading just fine. I am no expert when it comes to transmissions or the wiring they have, but I was hoping someone might be able to help with my issues. In some forum threads, I've seen the word PCM thrown around, which of my understanding is the part on the computer that controls the powertrain. I have not exactly known what to do to test or look at certain things pertaining to this, so if someone thinks this is the issue and could help me out, I'd really appreciate it. I have NO idea what to do next, and I'd love for this stupid car to just last me a few more months, so any help from people more knowledgeable about this than me would be amazing!

 
Rep Power: 367

leaking fluid getting into the electrical connectors?
remove and clean

 
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Just did, didn't fix it unfortunately.

 
Rep Power: 133

The good news is that P1768 and P1773 are an electrical issue and not a mechanical issue with your transmission.

You will want to check the A/T Clutch Pressure Control Solenoid Valve A and B and their circuits.

Check: measure resistance to determine if the valve is faulty, check continuity to from PCM connector and the valve and repair any short to ground in the wires, repair any loose or open wires at the connector, check the PCM connections, check for poor or open to the ground connection, check for a faulty PCM.