So I have a 2003 Honda w/38,000 miles which runs/ran like a dream. I am/was a certified VW tech and ASE certified tech so as you can imagine, I keep meticulous maintenance on everything I own. I originally didn't want the Honda, but my family and friends pressured me into one because they "knew" it was good company. I guess they prayed about it or something. I wanted a VW, I know how to keep them going.

Anyway, my Honda looks nearly brand new, has all it's services done with painstaking cleanliness (by yours truly) and has only 38,200 miles on it. It's been good for the last year or so, but today out on my way to work the transmission suddenly gave out and now it's essentially un-driveable. It needs to be revved to almost 5,000 rpm before it moves, so luckily I was able to get home. I was late for work obviously, but luckily I am the manager and had a reason :). Actually I just got in 20 minutes ago and already I am on RfM!

Either or I am rebuilding it myself, but I can't imagine what kind of financial stress this would put on a family if they had bought this car expecting it to be good because "Above all, it's a Honda!" It cost nearly $11k for an Accord EX with that few miles. It's well outside it's warranty period, but no one would suspect a 40k mile Honda would die so catastrophically. A rebuild from a good shop would easily run you $2,500-$3,000 on this car, and for me I am set back $850.

Anyway, I am back to driving my Mercury Station wagon which has almost 250k miles and has the original transmission.

Moral of the story, don't just buy something because someone said it was good, especially a car!


Sorry, sort of ranting, I am not happy about having to rebuild my transmission. :(



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/12/2012 08:32AM by notsurewhattothink.

Ugh... sorry about that. What rotten luck.

That's unfortunate. Obviously a transmission should last much longer. I have a 2005 Honda CR-V with 137,000 miles and it is still running great (knock on wood!). I change the oil myself and I started using Mobil-1 Synthetic oil when the car had 5000 miles. So I am hoping that the engine will be good for at least 300,000 miles.

The worst car I ever owned was a 1975 VW Rabbit that I bought new. It had an engine defect due to a design problem. Engine oil "leaked" through the valve pushrod tunnel and then got burned up in the engine. By the time the car had 40,000 miles it was burning a quart of oil every thousand miles. I had to pull the head off the vehicle and then I took it to a shop to have them rebuild the head. This was a known problem with that model car, but VW wouldn't pay a dime to fix it because it was out of warranty. I have never considered buying another VW since that time.

VW's stingy attitude cost them a customer for the next 37 years -- a very bad business decision on their part.

Haha, that's ironic. I had a Rabbit which I sold to just before I got the Honda. :) I miss the Rabbit so much, was one of my favorite cars even though it was a pile of trash.

EDIT: Quick update, according to the Honda service guy from around 2000-2003, Acuras and Hondas with V6s and an automatic transmission had a defective transmission potentially. Each potential car was supposed to go in for an inspection and potentially have the transmission replaced. Then if the work was done then you'd get a 7 year/100k mile warranty. However, this car was never taken in....:( Should have prayed and asked the spirit for advice.

Either or, I'll rebuild it myself over the next month or two. I trust myself more because it's my own car.. :D



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/12/2012 09:21AM by notsurewhattothink.

That sucks.
I have 160,000 miles on my 98 Honda. I've never had a transmission problem with it, but over the last couple of years, I've spent close to $1000 per year on repairs to keep it going.
You may want to check your warranty. Some of the parts have manufacturer warrantees that are longer than the standard 36k warranty.

I think the drive train is usually 100K.

notsurewhattothink Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Moral of the story, don't just buy something
> because someone said it was good, especially a
> car!




I don't think this is O/T. Can't you see the parallels?

I would have never expected this story to be about a Honda. I just sold my '95 del Sol: It was 17 years old and had 117,000 miles on it. Still purrs like a happy little kitty. Great car. Hondas, in my experience, tend to be super reliable. But so do Toyotas.

I drive a Fiat now. As in "Fix It Again, Tony" LOL So far, it appears to be mostly reliable, but when the warranty runs out, I'm trading it in for something else. I bought it used from a friend who was about to have twins, so she needed a minivan and had to get rid of her cute little green bean.

I'm interested, how do you like the little Fiat? My fiance is really really short and she's looking at buying one of these or a Mini Cooper.

As for me, I know that Honda is usually a safe bet but nothing is infallible. In high school I had an 82 Honda Civic with 300k miles on it and it ran....well, it ran.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/12/2012 09:24AM by notsurewhattothink.

Ooh, ooh, Mini Cooper! That's what I drive. They are amazing, and safe. Even tall people can drive them. I've had mine about six months and I still grin like a fool when I pull it out of the garage and zip down the road.

Alright I'll let her know that you love yours so much. :) She likes the Mini as well but wants a Yellow one which.....eh, I don't think I would want to drive myself.

We bought mine used, sithlord surprised me. It's British Racing Green, but has aspirations to be pink. As a Mom of 5 sons, I deserve something just for me. Nobody here will want to drive it if it's pink.

twojedis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've had mine about six months and I still
> grin like a fool when I pull it out of the garage
> and zip down the road.


I've had mine for four years and I'm still grinning like a fool. It's such a fun car to drive!

I have a Mini too. It's a convertible and lots of fun to drive. I've had it for three years and it still has less than 10,000 miles on it because we mostly use it on the weekends.

Super fun car, though. Love it!

ETA: Mine is British Racing Green too... and it has extra horses. I had it custom made on our way home from Germany! Love military sales!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/12/2012 10:15AM by knotheadusc.

I also love how you are suddenly part of a club when you drive around in it.

twojedis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I also love how you are suddenly part of a club
> when you drive around in it.


LOL!! So true! The Mini is the only car I've ever driven where I've regularly gotten friendly waves from other people driving the same type of car!

I quite like the Fiat. Great gas mileage. Not a lot of horsepower, but 40 MPG totally makes up for it. Mostly I drive very little short trips around town and hardly ever get past third gear anyway.

I get tons of comments about it because not very many people have them. The nearest dealership is about 3 hours away, so it's a bit like driving a unicorn. I spotted another one a couple weeks ago and the guy driving almost wrecked trying to get my attention to wave in solidarity. It's like, "Hey! Fiat Driver! Woot!"

I'm thinking of trading it in -- I have the 500 model -- for the Abarth model, which is turbocharged. Then I'll have my power driving back and will feel racy again. I highly recommend it!

When we were in Germany, we had to rent a car for about a month while we waited for ours to arrive. We ended up with a cute little Fiat Punto. It worked very well for us.

This shouldn't happen, not at 40K. Honda may be able to do something for you because the drive train should be still under warranty. Sometimes even if it isn't they will *still* do something for you. Contact someone. Are you sure there was no work done, like a transmission fluid change? The guys who do those things screw up all the time and cause damage. they will frequent ruin an engine or transmission by forgetting to put in the new fluid, things like that.

There are Honda transmissions out there running fine at 300K

Fluid was changed already by me at 30k, and actually changed 3 times over a 500 mile run (pan drop each time, with the last including a filter replacement) so that's fresh.

Turns out (posted above) that there was a recall and the car was never taken in for whatever reason.

You can still take it in, right?

Not according to the service desk. I know their job is to turn me away, but it's fine by me. I don't particularly like having other techs work on my car, so I believe I am going to do the transmission myself. That way I'll know it's done right :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/12/2012 09:37AM by notsurewhattothink.

It's a longshot because it's so long since the recall period but have you contacted Honda corporate about the problem? The manufacturer's customer service dept. may be more willing to help than the local dealer.

Honda's have had a generally excellent reputation for reliability until the last couple of years. Consumer Reports no longer has the Honda Civic as one of it's recommended cars.

No matter what brand of car I owned, I eventually had trouble with the automatic transmission (and I had the maintenance done at the recommended interval) on almost every one. That's one reason I learned to drive a stick shift - Fewer issues with the manual transmission.

I haven't tried corporate, but to be honest I think I'll just take care of it myself. I'll be more comfortable that way. Techs are always required to complete a job in a specific time frame (at least we were), so it's always possible that the tech tries to go too fast and messes up somewhere.

Also, funny enough, the only two automatic cars I have had good luck with were Fords. My Taurus was donated with 442k miles (original transmission) and the Explorer had 190k miles (original as well). Currently my Sable station wagon (also a Ford) has 247k miles on it's original transmission and, well, it's still going! All three vehicles are known for faulty gearboxes but with proper maintenance, almost every Ford I've seen has done some amazing miles.

EDIT: Automatics are such complicated beasts that it's so easy to make a bad one, and so easy for the technician to miss a tiny bit. i.e. I had a transmission I was redoing and forgot one little valve the size of very small BB. Put it in the truck and lo and behold, no reverse. Had to do the entire thing over again just for the one little ball valve. That's half of the motivation for me to want to do the rebuild myself because I'm going to be much more thorough than average tech.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/12/2012 10:46AM by notsurewhattothink.

I am a died in the wool true and blue Honda lover. I bought an '83 Honda Accord when I got married in 1986. We put over 300K on that thing (standard tranny mind you) before we sold it 15 years later. I bought a '95 Honda Accord (auto). It's on its fourth teenager now, 286K, and still runs like a champ. I think what happened to you is a fluke.

The same could be said about religions.

I wouldn't buy a used car without doing a bit of investigation. The google machine is a wonderful resource when checking on car's reliability, not to mention checking out the wacked out history of a so-called church...

I've never owned a VW until this spring when I bought my wife a 2009 Volks EOS with 55K miles. It was a VW certified vehicle.

The mindset I had about VW was from back in the 60's and 70's and obviously things have changed. The EOS is an amazing vehicle - hardtop convertible, 2.0 turbo, 35 mpg highway, and handles better than the Datsun 280Z that I drove for about 10 yrs.

Your issues with the Honda are certainly out of the ordinary, that really sucks... I had a transmission go out of a Chev Tahoo a few years ago to the tune of $4500, so I feel your pain. Good luck...

Carfax, NHTSA recall reports, Motortrend forums, Autoblog, Car and Driver forums, Consumer Reports, Google.

Sorry to hear about your Honda problem. That sucks and does seem to be pretty unusual. Recalls to fix assembly/install problems, yeah, that happens, but yours sounds odd.

CRVs and Accords for certain earlier years were recalled recently. Is your Accord one of those?

If the company goes back to purchasing American fleet cars again, hubby might consider choosing one. But then, the maintenance and gas would be on them not us. We got nickled and dimed to death on repairs with the ones we used to own.

So far, his company Subaru has been great. And I love my Honda, just as I did my last one.

notsurewhattothink Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Actually I just got
> in 20 minutes ago and already I am on RfM!

LOL!

My brother bought a house at the hight of the housing bubble when the house was most expensive. He was told "nobody ever lost money on real estate".

He lost money, lots of it.

My son is a Jaguar Land Rover tech. I'm looking for a car, he gives me all kinds of advice.

He said mercedes interiors fall apart quickly.
BMW's are ok but he doesn't think i'll like the 'feel' of it.
I'm not old enough to have a Cadillac.(thanks son)
He thinks I should get a Lexus.

Too bad, i'm sure that's probably a good recommendation. HOwever I don't have as much $$$ as he seems to think I have. Maybe I can find a good used one.

It the meantime I'm driving a Chevy Dura Max. Thing drives like a truck! I don't understand why anyone would want one of those things.

great gas mileage.

Probably totally unrelated, but I had the transmission fluid in my BMW changed, and a few hundred miles later it was squealing like a stuck pig. Then the transmission melted in to a heap of molten metal. It was very expensive to fix, but I had an extended warranty so they took care of it.

However, it was changing the fluid that actually killed it. I related the story to a friend and he told me that some older cars (this was a 1994 BMW 540i) had a problem with sludge build-up. The new transmission fluid was what broke the sludge free, which then blocked the filter, and caused the transmission to melt down.

Probably not related to your story, but I thought I'd throw it out there. It might help somebody else.

T-Bone



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/12/2012 05:09PM by T-Bone.