Some of you know about my 2002 Odyssey with 73K miles and its failed transmission, and American Honda's "generous" offer to pay 50% toward the cost of replacing it.
And, of course, you know my feelings on the subject.
Anyway, I dropped the van off yesterday. In talking with the service writer, he indicated that as of about six months ago, if you need to replace the transmission in your 02 or 03 V6 Honda, and you come in to ask that the dealership do this, American Honda will not sell you a replacement unit of any kind under any circumstances.
Please allow me to repeat this: American Honda will not sell you a working transmission to replace the self-destructing one they sold you 8 or 9 years ago when you bought the car new.
The ONLY way to get an American Honda transmission, he said, is if you are under some sort of warranty or goodwill accommodation with American Honda.
????
So the natural question is, how do you handle customers who for whatever reason are not under such an arrangement?
This particular dealership has an arrangement with a junkyard to get units from them. The junkyard "warrants" them for life (or, as we all know, just keeps throwing units at the customer as the old ones die--but no doubt the customer ends up paying labor, right?).
I didn't pursue this with the service writer. I'll talk with the service manager this week to clarify. I mean, this sounds low rent sleazy.
Interesting side note: The transmission I'm getting as part of my goodwill arrangement is sufficiently different from the grenaded factory unit that it needs a different control program. Since my control module can't be flashed, Honda requires that I get a new computer with this new transmission--hence the high cost of the overall job. Honda's TSBs flesh this out; this is so important to Honda that years ago, after they had already replaced a bunch of transmissions and later discovered the need for the new control program, they went back and GAVE the already-repaired customers brand new computers for free.
Of course, now I have to PAY for the computer...
Anyway, this puts the idea of taking it to AAMCO into a whole new light. I don't know the TRUE importance of the new control program; would a third-party-rebuilt unit similarly self-destruct a few years down the road because neither the inherent design nor the control computer was taken care of?
Inquiring minds and all that.
For reference, Honda's 50% accommodation leaves me holding the bag for $2218 plus tax.
In my mind, that's just retroactively raising the price of the van $2218. And to think that when I bought it, it was the most expensive car this dealership had ever sold. Apparently, that wasn't good enough.