The last half of December was fairly cold here, running around 10ºF or colder. My car lives in the garage overnight, which I keep around 45ºF. When leaving work I let the car run for about five to eight minutes. Enough to let it idle down. I keep the heater off at this point to give the little engine every chance to warm up. My office as on a hill and the road leaving the area is a long, gradual descent.

I noticed that, while on my way down the hill, the transmission would seem to hunt back and forth while cruising. It is barely noticeable and will cause the engine RPM's to move up and down only a couple hundred RPM. If I remove my foot from the accelerator or accelerate, the transmission makes up its mind. This may or may not be while the "Cold" light is on. The "seat of the pants" sensation is that the transmission is starting to engage the torque converter, but gives up. It can barely be felt and repeats about once per second.

My workaround was to put the gear selector into Sport mode, but I don't use the paddles.

Has anyone else noticed this when the car is cold?

 

The only time I let my Fit warm up that long is when it gets frosted so bad that scraping won't even shave it off. Such a pain. There's no other choice but to let the car warm up for five minutes with the defrost on. If you're warming up for 5 to 8 minutes just because, I think you're wasting a lot of gas- especially considering you seem to have a nice coast down hill. I'd let it warm up for no more than two minutes [or even just one] and let the coast do the rest. To each their own with that though. Cold light on or not [and it's almost always still on for me], I can coast all the way to the main road when I leave my work too and I do not notice the behavior you mention. I rather like that nice easy coast as a moving warm up. And my average mpg's prefer it over idling as well. If you're truly coasting, take your foot off the gas completely and let her go. But the tranny has no confusion for me in that situation.

Dan

 

Um... that kinda implies you are on the throttle in some attempt to keep the car going at a set speed?

it could be just that you are affecting more than you realize. according to other members, when the car detects enough throttle it will downshift to give more acceleration. but because of the position of your foot, you could be constantly triggering it then "letting off" without knowing it.

basically, it's not hunting for the gear, its reacting to your foot.

 

What happens if you use the cruise control?

 

Realized that I didn't reply to this thread last year. The car still has the same symptoms in the winter, cruise control or not. Some days this surging or hunting is annoying, other days not so bad. Doesn't do it when stopped or at highway speed. Just while cruising or under mild acceleration. After much testing over the winter I can tell that it's not my foot shaking or being 'in between' positions of the accelerator sensor.

Just weird.

 

Not an A/T driver, but I believe the Fit's A/T has a temperature sensor. This could be part of the mystery. Bet it shifts fine after it's reached operating temp. A long idle warm-up will not get the tranny hot, only driving will really do that when it's that cold. I would start 'er up and drive off, holding it in a lower gear down the hill.

I hear the moose are having a tough go of it up there this winter.

 

I guess that could be it. The temperature was mostly below 0ºF for most of January. It does seem to knock off the hunting / surging after most of my commute. I don't really give it much of a chance to warm up, just enough to get fluids moving.

This winter has been torture. (0ºF and tons of snow in October and it hasn't let up. We won't get relief until April.) After 30 years you would think I'd be used to it, but it just gets harder. I recently declared that this is the last house I'll own in Alaska...damn it!

 

You might want to try a transmission drain/fill with the newer Honda DW-1 ATF.*

I think it's a lower viscosity and a higher percentage synthetic (fully?).

It's not required, and in fact the MM won't call for a drain/fill until sometime after 60K miles, but the newer fluid seems to perform better here, in even 45F ambient temps.

Besides changing gears, the Fits AT locks and unlocks the torque converter at low speeds (to save fuel). Other cars typically don't lock their converters until higher than 50MPH. It may be this action that you're sensing, especially when it's not up to operating temperature.

Dealers charge too much (over $100 for this service) which drains less than 3 quarts of fluid and replaces this. Cost of the fluid is about $30. Unless you're handy and have a heated garage this may be your only option.

*not sure what year your Honda is or when they switched, you might already have the newer fluid.

 

I like how the torque converter locks up at low speed. It feels like you get more torque that way.

My car was born in April of 2010 and has 14k miles.

I an certainly handy and of course I have a heated garage. The question would be how many drains and fills does it take to flush the majority of the fluid?

 

Fill # percent dw1
1 41.67%
2 65.97%
3 80.15%
4 88.42%
5 93.25%
6 96.06%
7 97.70%
8 98.66%
9 99.22%
10 99.54%
11 99.73%
12 99.84%


and so on @ about 2.5 quarts changed out of 6 each time with enough driving to mix it in between drains/fills.

this seems to be the definitive ATF thread.

raytseng suggested using a suction pump that they make for draining fluids without getting under the car. If you don't already have ramps this might be easier. Something like this.

I believe the torque converter lock starts activating when the engine cold light goes off. The transmission is still probably cold so the fluid is thick. This is just a guess from how it seems to behave.

Yours is probably activating the torque lock at a lower temperature than if you parked it outside and drove it to warm it up. Nothing wrong with this, but it might explain why you feel it more.

For what it's worth, I could tell a difference after one drain/fill (42% DW-1). Don't go crazy.