Transmission Being Replaced on my '03 V6 Accord Due to Leaking Case

I wonder how common this problem is ?????

The automatic transmission on my '03 V6 Accord has had repeated small leaks since shortly after I purchased it. The first several times the dealer sealed the leaks with JB Weld and the like, yet more continued to appear. Today I was informed that they will be replacing the entire transmission under warranty. I'm at 35,000 miles now and only weeks away from the end of the warranty. Hopefully the rebuilt transmission they install will be a good one.

The number of problems Honda has been having with it's automatic transmissions is a real concern. Oddly enough, my relative is visiting with her new '05 Civic Hybrid and it also has a leaking automatic transmission. The same dealer is having a look at it for her. 5,000 miles on a new Civic and it is leaking ATF.

Sure makes a person wonder about the "bulletproof" reputation Honda has.

John

Reply to
John Horner
Loading thread data ...

I remember back in 1991 when my cousin purchased a Honda Accord Hatchback, and had nothing but problems with the automatic. In 1993 he was fed up and converted his auto to a manual at great costs.

As early as 1998, I remember reading Car & Driver articles that stated if you were going to buy a Japanese vehicle, make sure you get a standard transmission, because the automatic transmissions were not perfected at that time. Hard to believe it is 2005, and they are still having "issues" with automatic transmissions.

Reply to
Ron Jeremy

As much as I like and respect the 'Asian Big Three' and many of their vehicle offerings throughout their history, I will openly admit that they haven't been immune to automatic transmissions problems. But neither have the American automobile manufacturers. Part of the problem is the nature of the beast itself. An automatic transmission is an extremely complex assemblage of parts and it is actually a miracle that many of them perform as well as they do. Manual trannys are indeed more robust, and most cars do get a little better gas mileage that contain them. A while back the difference was more significant than it is today in a lot of cases.

I've seen Nissans, Hondas, Chevys and Chryslers all four give transmission problems. It can happen with any automatic transmission--regardless of the manufacturer. And it is true that Hondas aren't bulletproof. But they're still good cars when compared to many of the other makes out there. A co-worker of mine could tell you LOTS of horror stories about the 2002 BMW

325i that he just traded in on a used Infiniti. It's totally unbelievable how many problems that he encountered with that car! So much for the "Ultimate Driving Machine" b.s. ....

Ron M.

Reply to
Ron M.

I just took over driving my wife's 97 Civic due to her becoming disabled and she took over driving my '00 Accord EX V6 coupe. The funny thing is my '00 has 80,000 miles and her '97 only has 62,000 miles.

I love the manual transmission in her '97 Civic. I am getting over 30 MPG in the City, and about 37 MPG on the highway. Except for faded paint on the spoiler and a dry-rotted driver's side visor, there is absolutely nothing mechanically wrong with the '97 Civic.

I just hope the transmission holds up in the '00 Accord. I think I am going to have it checked out soon because the SRS light is on, and I want to make sure that the transmission is technically sound.

I was really considering getting a '05 or '06 Accord V6 coupe with a manual transmission within the next year, but, I think I want to wait until the '97 Civic starts giving me problems. I might be waiting a while!

Chris B

Reply to
Chris

oooh, i could tell you stories about that... when i was at metallurgy school, one of our professors was a fatigue god. as in /really/. one day, a certain bavarian car manufacturer came to him with a problem - their transmissions were lasting too long.

long story short, money changed hands & they got their solution. it costs them 20% to 30% more to make that transmission, but it more than pays off in taking "old" cars off the road - their objective in all this. next time you're on a road trip with the kids, have them keep score on 10+ year old cars and plot the distribution by manufacturer. you'll quickly see that this certain company's plan is /very/ effective.

read their advertising literature too. when someone refers to their transmission as "maintenance free" and doesn't even bother with a drain plug so you can't change transmission oil, you can be assured that longevity is not on the agenda.

Reply to
jim beam

True enough, but on my recent problem the failure mode is a casting defects in the main case which allow fluid to leak through. I would expect Honda to at least get the basic case casting right.

John

Reply to
John Horner

Sure that wasn't 1968?

J.

Reply to
JXStern

Did they fix this problem with the 05 Accords?? I am thinking of getting a 05 Accord LX or EX V6 and I wanted to know if the transmission problem was fixed on the 05's. Also, Is there a site that I can research the problem with the honda transmissions.

Reply to
Matt

Honda has put in place lots of transmission fixes over the years ... but do they have it right yet??? We will not know until we see at least 5 years of new history.

I don't know of a specific one, but it is discussed in many places. Just search for "Honda Transmission Failure" and you will find plenty to read.

John

Reply to
John Horner

no kidding. casting porosity is not new, but allowing it to suddenly be present after decades of doing it right indicates a *serious* management problem.

i /love/ hondas, but i can't see myself buying anything post 2000 until they fire their current "bean counters make all the decisions" management team & get some engineering/quality back into the equation. seriously. honda will /never/ compete with toyota on price, so they should get back to competing on product offering & product quality. that was a highly successful strategy before.

trying to "out toyota" toyota has cost them:

  1. significant share of the family sedan market that was the accord thanks to significant reliability issues.

  1. significant alienation the cheaper sport/enthusiast market that used to be civic thanks to CRAP suspension design. the econo crowd also used to buy the civic, but that brand loyalty is now fading in favor of the prius.

  2. complete anihilation the "mid range" sport/entusiast market that used to be integra with the abysmal rsx and given it to subaru. or even mazda!

honda are in serious trouble. such a shame. /used/ to be fantastic cars.

Reply to
jim beam

Actually, I meant 1988. That was the time my uncle went with a Mazda

626 sedan, but chose to go standard over automatic due to numerous reviews on problems with Japanese automobiles. He kept that 626 for over 12 years, and it was still running like a champ when he traded it in on a Accord for my aunt.
Reply to
Ron Jeremy

Truer words were never spoken.

Reply to
Elmo P. Shagnasty

Hi John,

I agree with you 100%. At this point in time casting defects shouldn't be an issue. Believe me, I wasn't defending the manufacturer against your complaint. I was just stating how several different manufacturers continue to struggle with automatic trannys after all these years--and how it's not really that uncommon to have some sort of problem with them. The one that surprises me the most is GM's issues with the 4L60E transmission which has been used in several different cars, SUVs and pickup trucks over the years. Admittedly, they have sold a whole lot of vehicles with this particular transmission. So yes, there are going to be some defective ones. But you can also view this from another perspective and say that this tranny should be

100% bulletproof by now. I had a 4L60E to fail in a 2002 Chevy TrailBlazer LTZ with only 9,000 miles on the odometer. That's pretty sad! :-(

Ron M.

Reply to
Ron M.

The 02 Odyssey, at least, had some porosity issues with the engine block.

Let me tell you, Honda has stopped being an engineering company. Non-engineers are running things, and they're running Honda's hard-earned reputation into the ground.

Once lost, it's lost (GM, anyone?). Hyundai doesn't have a particularly difficult job ahead of them; all they have to do is make rock-solid cars and service their customers well, and they'll capture those who came to expect that kind of service back when Honda did that.

Reply to
Elmo P. Shagnasty

Indeed, problems like that seem to keep coming back in the automotive industry. Volvo had problems with it's aluminum block straight-6 engines when that design was released in the mid-1990s.

Sure seems that way.

Indeed. There was a time in the post-WWII where GM was one of the best engineering and manufacturing companies in the world.

Hyundai is on the right track with long standard warranties. By taking on a long warranty they take on the costs associated with engineering and manufacturing problems. That way the costs are born by the people who were responsible for the problems in the first place.

Most of the repairs (excepting normal wear items) which are needed by any modern properly maintained vehicle in the 37k-100k mile time frame are a result of poor engineering and/or poor manufacturing controls. Honda and most auto makers sidesteps this basic fact by putting those costs onto the customer. The customer didn't make the mistakes. Managers, engineers and/or factory workers caused most of the problems, yet the customer is one stuck paying the bill. Of course customers get very angry about this.

GM lost it's way first and foremost by getting arrogant; and secondarily by letting the finance people have the upper hand on most internal decisions. Honda is in great danger of making that same kind of long-term mistakes.

One of the crazy things in the modern world is that most companies spend massive fortunes on advertising to gain customers, but then treat the customers like dog-doo once said same customer have put their money on the table. I would love to see an automobile company have the guts to cut it's advertising budget as needed to fund an immediate increase of the warranty period for all customers, INCLUDING THOSE WHO HAD ALREADY BOUGHT A CAR. Imagine the positive buzz if Honda announced tomorrow that effectively immediately all Honda car purchases would be covered by a five year, 75k mile comprehensive warranty and that in order to fund the slight increase in costs to Honda from this change they would be reducing television advertising buys slightly to cover the potential costs.

If one is to believe Honda's hype/image, this increased warranty period should cost the company almost nothing.

John

Reply to
John Horner

Yup.

At 35K miles and 42 months of age (right outside the warranty by time), the idle air control on my Odyssey went bad. That's a $300 repair. Fortunately, my dealership stepped up to the plate (it's good to have a good relationship with those folks) and just replaced it for me, and in the background made Honda pay for it.

And they were right--it wasn't right for me to have suffered something like that. I'm glad they took care of it, and Honda does indeed take care of their customers who know to ask, but there are plenty who don't know to ask--and they're buying some big ticket items like transmissions.

And that's just plain wrong.

Reply to
Elmo P. Shagnasty

Since I work as a mechanical engineer myself, I can tell you from first hand experience that the majority of the quality problems with *our* products are indeed due to our accountants preventing us from spending the appropriate amount of funds for better materials and tooling. It is VERY difficult to deal with this on a daily basis as an engineer. Just this week I did some extensive analysis on a product of ours and clearly demonstrated that it is HIGHLY likely to fail in the real-world application. Mainly due to the fact that my superiors insist on using a "cheap material" to help increase the profit margin on the product. So when customers start returning these parts I am DEFINITELY going to say 'I told you so!!!' Funny how we don't have the money to do things right the first time, but we've somehow got the money to do things over, and over and OVER in order to straighten out the screw ups that COULD have been prevented up front. It's just insanity the way that a lot of companies operate.

It's true that Honda is on course to become another GM if they don't wake up and change their business model in a very timely fashion.

Ron M.

Reply to
Ron M.

MotorsForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.