Hello folks,

I’m not new to Hyundais. I used to own an Atos and it was the best! Zero failures, gas saver but it was tiny so I sized up and got a 2017 Accent SE.

I bought it from an auction so I could only start the engine and rev it up, no test drives…
when I take it out of the yard I notice that it takes a while for the car to move, and when in Reverse the car was moving forward, I hat to really hit the gas pedal to make it move backwards. Long story short the code I have from the check engine light is P0734.
I've seen other posts about this code but all the cars involved were pretty old, so I thought Hyundai would have fixed any design flaw by now?
I ran a carfax report and no major mechanical issues, nothing related to the transmission so I don’t know what to do!
the car does run though but if I take to the highway at 60-65mph the rpms are 4-5k
Forgot to add that car wont go past 4th gear

 

What does the the trans fluid look like?

Low, smell burnt, really dark? A plugged trans filter can produce similar symptoms.

 

No I have not checked it! It seems particularly difficult to do it since there is no dipstick to check the levels or any orifice to sample a little bit of the fluid?

Its good to hear it might be just that though, I can’t afford a new transmission sigh

 

When was the trans last serviced?

 

I’m not 100% sure. The carfax report has 3 service reports but none of them mention anything specific about transmission fluid.
It just says that @42,885 mi the “recommended maintenance was performed”and “fluids checked”
so I guess it was done at that time?
The next report @61,131 mi is just oil change and tires rotation.
Last record @93,843 mi is another oil change and “fuel injection system checked”

I bought the car with 121,500 mi. I would like to add that the car was left in the yard stationary and exposed to the elements for almost a year and a half. Could that have contributed to this?

 

*Update*

So I finally decided to follow your advice and inspect the transmission fluid and also change it (might as well right?) and oh surprise! First of all the drain plug was loose enough to unscrew it with my bare fingers… just a little bit of transmission fluid came out. It looked dark red and smelled bad. Anyways it was pretty dry!
I added 4 quarts of new ATF I bought at Oreilleys.
I turn up the engine and the check engine light cleared out! The car is now running smoothly.
Total cost $100 (including the waste oil container)

Thank you Hanky!

 

Glad everything went well and thank you for the update.