05 Civic Hybrid CVT judder advice

Jeremy-74
Wed, 08 Jul 2020 16:25:14 +0000
Maintenance/Repairs

Hi all,

I bought an 05 Civic Hybrid back in 2016 for $3300 with just under 60k miles. I got it from an elderly woman who regularly maintained it and kept it in good condition.

After about 5k miles of usage and an oil change I began noticing rumbling during takeoff and a rare hesitation and jerk during coasting. (Now I know this problem is called juddering).

I was only 18 at this point and didn’t know the first thing about transmission problems and I was told/read that this problem is normal for a CVT hybrid so I ignored it. I also did not know that you were supposed to regularly change the transmission fluid… Whoops.

Long story short I am at about 97k miles on this car and it is in otherwise amazing condition but when I just took it into a shop to get a transmission flush, the mechanic told me to start looking for a new car because my clutch was burning up. This was after a free inspection and not from a super reputable mechanic so I wanted another opinion.

I’ve read countless stories of people fixing this exact issue by burnishing the clutch and then drain/filling it a few times.

My question is whether this is risky to do because changing the old gritty fluid that the transmission is used to can cause the clutch to stop engaging and potentially"clot" or if I should take the risk and potentially save my CVT.

I love this car and like I said it still performs well. I’d love to take it past 100k if I can and at this point the blue book value of this car is only about $1k so not worth expensive repairs.

Should I do the burnish/drain/fill?

7 posts - 5 participants