AXOD shifitng
filed in 1994 Honda Civic
Question: Owning both pre 91 taurus with the hydraulically shifted transmissions and 92 and 93 with the electronically shifted transmissions, i have noticed one interesting thing. The older hydraulically shifted unit seems to shift smoother. For some reason, between 25 and 35 mPH under certain conditions, the electronically shifted units seem to kind of hunt gears or shift in and out of lock up. I am not quite sure what it is, but i have noticed this on more than one AXODE. It always happens on a road by my house on a 2 block uphill grade. I would have thought that the newer electronically shifted transmissions to be smoother. I guess this is not correct. Anyone else noticed this? The transmissions were all functioning normal. I have not had a AXOD(x) fail on me yet. (crossing my fingers and toes for the future). My wife has totalled out two of them though.
Know what you mean. I’m waiting for my 93 tranny to go too. Have 108k on it now and so far it shifts as smooth as new. I have a friend with a 93 Cougar and he has 130k with no problems. Don’t know what the hell I’m going to do if it does go. Not much of a market for cars with broken trannies. And I hate to even think about putting $2500 into this thing.
BTW, my friend with the Windstar that I warned him about buying had his transmission repair covered under an extended warranty. Only problem was the dealer in Conn wanted $1100 to “tear the tranny down” which conveniently wasn’t covered under the warranty. He got a rental car and drove back to Conn from Jorsey. He then drove the van back in 2nd gear (crazy?). The dealer here only charged him $200 for the teardown. Go figure.
The AXODE was renamed the AX4S (light duty) and AX4N (heavy duty) sometime in the late 90’s. I’m not certain what, if any changes were made, internally. For 2000, the programming was updated to be driver adaptive.
My 2000’s 1-2 shift sometimes has heavy torque management going on (you can feel the engine cut back, trans shift, then engine power come back.) Probably one of the ways Ford is trying to protect these fragile transmissions.
The AX4N was the automatic that was installed in the SHO. It was called the AXODE, the parts book also incorrectly identified it as an AXODE. About 94 Ford finally saw the mistake and renamed both transmissions.
The name is embossed on the valve body cover, not sure when that started happening though.
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