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I have a 2009 Honda Civic Si, which I love! It has 290,000 miles on it (full disclosure), but these are almost entirely highway miles as I have a very long work commute and have since I purchased the car nine years ago. Yesterday I had the compressor replaced after 2-3 years of suffering in Alabama with no A/C. I picked up the car and a few miles down the road I started having trouble shifting the manual transmission. I tried to make it home, but I finally was no longer able to shift the car into any gear and had to park it in neutral and get a tow.
Any ideas about how an A/C compressor replacement could have messed up the transmission like this? Or is this likely a bizarre coincidence? I'm pretty distraught, having just spent a damned fortune finally getting the A/C fixed, to now possibly face another very expensive repair. Plus I need brakes. Considering whether it's time to give this car up, but I'm at that stage of life where the kid$ are co$ting lot$ of money with college, wedding$, etc.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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There is no way the AC compressor could affect the transmission. If it's a manual transmission it could just be the clutch worn out, or if real lucky, just a slave cylinder. Manual or automatic, no one can complain if they get that many miles out of a transmission. Automatics will cost close to $3,000 to rebuild, about what the car is worth, clutch about $800.
It's either a bizarre coincidence (you do have 290K on it), or someone at the shop caused damage while moving your car to do the compressor work. No way to really tell but it is likely something just wore out or broke due to age and mileage.
The ac has nothing to do with the transmission that’s like saying running out of windshield fluid caused my car to overheat. If you have over 200,000 miles you are a lucky person because things do wear out due to wear and tear doesn’t matter if all highway miles, miles is still miles.
Could be during the compressor replacement, something involving the transmission was inadvertently impacted.
Umm...no.
This happens all the time. Customers are always quick to blame their new problem on the guy that did the last repair.
There are countless things that can go wrong with a car at any given time...no matter how old it is.
They repaired your a/c...that's it. You cannot blame them for the next thing that goes bad on a car...especially one with that many miles on it.
Years ago, I replaced the radiator in a Ford Escort. The customer was standing there with me waiting for the air bubbles to bleed out of the cooling system. It was just sitting there idling away , when all of a sudden, the engine died. Timing belt broke..right in front of us. This guy started calling me every name in the book, accusing me of sabotaging his car , causing the timing belt to strip.
Demanded I buy him a new engine. Didn't happen.
Go ahead...go back to the shop that fixed the a/c and accuse them of messing up your transmission.
Let us know how that works out.
My power steering went out and I bought new tires in the same week. My gas mileage decreased about 11% ever since. I've tracked MPG figures since I bought the can in 2009. It's been a few years now. The MPG never recovered. I replaced the tires with low rolling resistance tires designed for fuel economy. No difference. I wonder if the dealer reprogrammed my engine when they fixed the power steering.
I don't know the Honda but, perhaps they had to slightly lift the engine to access the compressor, or make room to remove it, and something about that impacted the shift linkage. Maybe it will be a simple repair.
The time I had a car suddenly not shift it was the cable from the pedal that broke. So a relatively inexpensive fix. I think a clutch would fail more slowly. Don't know about the master/slave cylinders but at that mileage if they have never been replaced it's probably time.
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