Honda Odyessy 2000 transmission concern

Yes.

The problem is, Honda apparently replaces them with the same shitty transmissions.

Now, I'm a Honda guy from 25 years back. I drive and love Hondas--but Honda really, really dropped the ball big-time on this transmission.

Accord V6 owners (and Acura owners) have the same transmission, and the exact same troubles.

If you go to

you'll find plenty of people who have had their 4 speed transmissions replaced multiple times. The 02 model changed out the transmission completely, to a 5 speed unit (it also had quite a few other changes, making the 02 model the one you really want), but even it had issues. Honda put out a VERY expensive recall for that general transmission (again, also used in Accords and Acuras), but it's a completely different issue--one of lubrication. Once the dealership fixes the lubrication issue, either by adding a small oil jet kit on if the tranny is still good or replacing the tranny if it's not, it's fixed. It doesn't have the same basic, inherent, unfixable design issues that the old 4 speed unit had in the 99-01 models.

On the 2000 model you're looking at, you have 40K miles left of warranty on that tranny. Odds are very good that you're on borrowed time no matter what. Knowing what you know now, either pay a suitable amount for the van (you may find yourself buying a $4000 transmission in 45K miles) or else look elsewhere.

I hate to say that, because it lowers the resale value of the entire Odyssey line, including my 02. But it's the truth.

I would be more worried about one which had not yet had it's transmission replaced :(. The failure mode seems indicative of a basic design flaw, which means that probably all of them are going to fail at some point.

The $99 question is whether or not Honda's modifications to the replacement transmission are sufficient to provide a long term robust solution. For that, only time will tell.

John

The problem is, they're being replaced the THE SAME FAULTY UNITS.

You can't avoid it. Plenty of people are on their third and fourth transmissions, because Honda won't go back and redesign the transmission for a no-longer-sold vehicle. They'll just keep slapping remanufactured units in until every one of them hits the 100K mile mark, and then the problem "goes away".

Except it doesn't go away; people remember that they got screwed by owning a Honda product, and they go elsewhere.

GM was on top of the world once. They let it get to their heads, and they stuck their heads in the sand and ignored the issues that kept coming up, and now they have to give their cars away. Honda has now a 6 year track record of behavior like that, over the transmissions (both the 4 speed unit AND the 5 speed unit, with its own separate set of troubles), the cheapening of the Civic design, their lack of stylish designs, etc.

You'll find that Honda either isn't modifying the replacement units to fix the problem, or else isn't modifying them sufficiently to stop the transmissions from failing.

Either way, Honda dropped the ball big time on this. And it's just one in a series of blunders.

I'm a Honda guy from way, way back and my family drives Hondas. But this has me worried. I remember what they were like, and I see them going the way of GM.

i'm with you on this, but what else is there? toyota are boring to drive. mazda are fords. subaru, which i think are great mechanically, don't handle very well. they're great off road & in the snow, but when it comes to road, you have to spend a /lot/ of money to beat the wish-boned hondas for handling. hyundai? they're still a /long/ way from being decent. nissan? my jury's still out. it's a real quandry.

I'll take "boring to drive" if it comes with "won't cause me such grief".

Seriously, I'm driving a 94 ES300 right now (my brother gave it to me for Christmas a couple years ago); with 150K on the clock, it's a very comfortable and very reliable car.

Boring to drive? Maybe. Maybe I'm getting old and don't care anymore. I set the XM radio, put the car into gear, and go. It is THE most comfortable car I've driven, ever.

Honda's reputation for quality is indeed slipping. For the last 5-6 years, the name Honda has become synonymous with transmission problems and complete failures. There's a car rental business about 3 miles from one of the local Honda dealerships where I live. A guy working there told me that the overwhelming majority of the business that they do is for people that are having to rent vehicles while their Hondas' transmissions are being repaired or replaced.

There was a point in time when virtually NO ONE that owned a Honda had anything negative to say about their vehicle. I believe that those days are gone. There are probably quite a few people who own newer Hondas that are at least somewhat dissatisfied with their vehicle. Mainly due to transmission issues with a few different models.

Fortunately, my wife's 2001 Civic LX sedan has been a really good vehicle thus far. It has 104,000 miles on it now and about the only thing outside of routine maintenance that it has required is a driver's side front wheel bearing. There was a recall for a headlight switch that the local dealership took care of--but there never was a problem with the original one. The transmission in her car shifts smoother than any other automatic transmission that I have experienced. Including the one in my 2002 Lexus! Can't say enough good things about my wife's Civic.

Let's hope Honda gets it back together soon with some of the other models that they've been having problems with!!!

Ron M.

Count me in! I had a Lotus Europa when I was a carefree bachelor, and it was great fun to drive. It also illustrated the saying about an English sports car being something to work on on the weekends. Nearly three years ago we traded a Nissan 300ZX for a Toyota Prius. The Nissan was a neverending challenge to keep on the road, while the Toyota has only needed tires and a replacement windshield. Oddly, it is also more fun to drive than the Nissan, probably because it is very manueverable - and that is what I prize most.

Mike

I really like the Ford Miata.

Mike,

What model year 300ZX did you have? I just gave my stepson a 1990 Nissan

300ZX that I recently had the engine rebuilt in. The 1990 and 1991 models had a problem with the valves mushrooming and not seating properly after 110,000 miles or so of operation. It doesn't happen to all of them, but it did with mine. Fortunately I found a guy that loves the Z-32s(second generation 300ZXs) and he did a complete engine rebuild job for a great price. My stepson wanted the car a whole lot more than me, so I let him have it. I had driven the car a lot since purchasing it in July of 1993 with 18,000 miles on it--and not a single scratch, rock chip, door ding or interior flaw. It was 100% immaculate when I picked it up for $18,150.00. It was a really good car until I had about 125,000 miles on the odometer. After that it seemed as though the mechanical and electrical problems were seemingly endless. I mean it was just one thing after another that had to be replaced. I kept driving until it had 173,000 miles on it. My stepson is well aware of how much money I had to put into the car to keep it on the road, but he still begged me for it. I told him that he better find himself a very good paying job it he plans on keeping the car for very long. :-) Parts and labor for repair work on the Zs aren't cheap as you already know.

I told my wife that I am going to replace the Z with a '94-'97 Honda Accord sedan if I can find a really nice one for a decent price. The Accord is going to become my daily commuter and general runabout car.

Ron M.

Mine was an '84. The majority of the problems were electrical - a wide variety of intermittents and failures that showed up with increasing frequency as the car aged. The most frustrating was the connection to the ignition coil (a push-on two piece connector in the '84). It would kill the ignition for anywhere from a tiny fraction of a second to ten minutes, several times per hour, for the two months it took me to track it down. My exercise program was pushing the car out of the road. Toward the end I dealt with two problems associated with the ECU within a couple months. The first of them turned the fuel pump off every 30 (or was it 60?) seconds because the ECU thought the engine wasn't running. Eventually I hard-wired the fuel pump relay to pull in when the ignition was on. The second caused very rough idle and stalling about half the time - I found I could push the wire bundle at the ECU to one side and it would work. I inspected everything and resoldered the connector in the ECU without success.

If I hadn't been so stubborn, I could have unloaded it much earlier. The warning signs were there after the first couple intermittents but I thought there would be an end to it. If you don't repeat my mistake in holding on too long if trouble like that starts showing up you should be okay.

Mike