CarComplaints.com Notes: The 2001 Civic has transmission problems, transmission problems & more transmission problems. Did we mention transmission problems? And a dangerous defect with the front airbag that didn't get recalled for 10 years.
Although eventually the defective 2001 Civic airbag inflators were fixed under recalls in 2011 & 2013, that meant for 10 to 12 years airbags were activating with excessive force where metal fragments went shooting into passengers when the airbag deployed.
As for the 2001 Civic's transmission woes? Honda conducted a major transmission recall in 2004 & settled a class action lawsuit for defective transmissions in 2006. But, neither the recall or the lawsuit included the 2001 Civic.
Last thing to consider - the 2001 Civic is the most-recalled car ever, closely followed by the 2002 Civic & the 2001 Accord. The 2001 Civic is the 4th most-recalled vehicle overall, only a Ford truck & two Ford vans have more.
We paid cash for this car. As new it would have problems especially with reverse. I almost had a severe accident because of this. The car does jerk switching gears. It pops out of reverse. It has always done this even as a new car. Honda thinks little of these problems. It has been a difficult expensive car. I did get it serviced mostly at Honda Dealerships. I don't dare to take it very far from home. So it has limited my travels. I don't trust it. The car is 2001 with 160,000 miles on it. The engine light is always on. I'm told to ignore it.
So much for Honda being a reliable working class car, what a joke!! What you save in gas mileage you get ripped off in repairs!! I have a 1997 Ford T-Bird that is more reliable than this car that has 321000 on it with pretty much normal wear maintenance issues.
I had my transmission rebuilt for the first time by AAMco in 1/2011. Now I have the same problem with my transmission 2-3 weeks ago and AAMCO told me that my warranty is not covered. its pain in my part because I use this car for work.
The transmission of my 2001 civic began popping out of 4th gear on occasion. The car was my wifes and I didn't normally drive it. When I did and if popped out during acceleration she told me it had been doing it for a while. We decided to get a new car since we saw a trend since we just put in new struts and had the anti-lock break system replaced for about $1000 each . The Honda dealership test drove it and said it needed a new transmission. This had a large impact on the trade in value. I need to keep an eye on this site and when I see if our 2010 civic might have issues and trade in before the problem manifests
as a auto mechanic and auto car collector for 40 years, it is clear honda did not build these manual transmissions correctly. they should not pop out of gear at 100000.
My 2001 Honda Civic EX will NOT stay in 5 gear for more than a split second. As soon as I put it in gear it pops out, so now I can't travel on roads over 50mph for any longer than a few minutes. At speeds around 45/50 and up the car eats gas worse than a chevrolet suburban because it runs around 3500rpm on up in 4th gear. Honda knows about this problem but refuse to fix it. They should fix our transmissions that are popping out at a million miles, it is their fault.
I will never ever buy another Honda anything! They actually did work on my transmission while it was still under warranty because the gear was popping out. Well, that obviously didn't work. They should have replaced it with a new transmission, not gotten it to work well enough to make it through the warranty period.
I purchased a 2001 Honda Civic Ex for my daughter in November 2009. A couple weeks later, I find that the gear jumps outta 2nd gear when I'm driving around residential areas. I should have reported it to the dealership I bought it from but they would have countered with the "as is" clause when buying a new car. And like the other consumer complaints, the gears do feel as if they are grinding when shifting to another gear. Put me down as a litigant for a Honda Civic recall!
Well I guess I'm not alone in this category! All of a sudden about a week or 2 ago I noticed it became difficult to move my stick shift. Someone else here said and I quote " feels like I'm moving the stick shift through sand" and that is just how I feel. In addition to the fact that it also pops out of 2nd and 4th gear. I'm not happy :( taking it in to get looked at, but can't understand for the life of me why Honda doesn't fix the problem with so many complaints filed. We will see
felt my gears getting harder to shift, very difficulrt to get it into 4th gear and pops out of third...so I brought it to the mechanic
First he tells me it's the clutch so he replaced it, now it's popping out of second and third and pretty much have to double shift into each gear. With so many complaints on the 2001 Honda CIvic not sure if its worth putting more money in
I bought the 2001 Honda Civic as a cheap reliable car to help me travel 350 miles from home to school whenever the holidays or breaks would occur. Unfortunately, that is where I failed in my decision, believing Honda Civics was the SOLUTION!!! I now own a car that has already forced me out of the road once and may screw me over the coming months, I just don't know when. The transmission is seemingly destined for failure as fellow owners of this Honda all seem to have the same terrible end. What must we do for a class action suit, cause I'm so IN!!! Please do not stop communicating we need to move on this. Anyone feel similarly, please e-mail me at rocketboyssk@gmail.com.
WOW! what a nightmare we are all sharing. I've dumped $6K into my 2001 Civic EX bought in Oct. '02 in the last 18 months alone. First the catalytic converter crapped out (twice!) and they found a problem with the struts. That was Sept. '03 (at the very beginning of a new job after being out for 2 yrs, thank you very much!) and THEN, just last Friday, I noticed it felt like I was pushing the shift thru sand to get it into 4th gear, so I brought it to the mechanic.Guess I'm luckier than most.... My baby didn't dump me.
First he tells me it's the clutch (I'm a bit offended - hey, I am a GOOD clutcher!!), but ok. replace it - these things wear out. So, he replaces that (and in the process finds my ENGINE MOUNTING was bad) and $1500 later, off I go. I'm driving it home, and the car is driving WORSE than when I brought it in. Now I can't even FIND second and it's a 50/50 shot if I can find 4th. So, I bring it back and after a day of diagnosing, they tell me (with heads cowering), it's the transmission. YOU HAVE GOT TO KIDDING ME!? THIS IS A HONDA!? Something about the linkage, he tells me. DAMN! So, $1600 for a 65K miles tranny (I'm told I was lucky we could find an EX). And my mechanic is so AWESOME, he's not charging me to break it down a second time, since they already did it when they replaced the clutch (nice guys!). I've had to spend money to rent a car because I just COULDN'T ask my friends to chauffeur me around any more while this beast was getting repaired. Ahhh, tis the season for credit card debt, I guess.
This was an EXPENSIVE car for me to buy at the time I did, but I figured it was a Honda and would last me forever (or at least until I got sick of it), but at LEAST until it was paid off. Well, it barely did that! This was the WORST possible time for me to need car repairs... there are talks of layoff's since I'm affiliated with a State-funded agency and the governor is cutting the budget. It's scary times. I was lucky my repair shop had credit to offer (and it was JUST enough to do the job). Maybe a new incentive to go American...
My husband I bought a 2001 civic in 2007. Soon after the gear would pop out of 2nd. From asking around, it seemed to be less expensive to replace the transmission with a used one then to repair it. I wish we didn't put out cash into this piece of crap and bought an automatic instead!
Well I guess I get to join the Honda hate club. My tranny just went out while driving through town thank god I was at a red light when it happened otherwise who know what might have happened. I'm hopping a family friend can get this fixed but after all the post I read I think I'm screw I hope I can get some info on what will be the best to do through those that already fixed this problem.
Thought Hondas' were the best thing there was for the money. Still do i guess. Just bought the car and was told that the gears were slippin. Being mechanically savvy i thought that i could take care of it. It however increased in occurrence and then now is a literal pain in the ass. I love my car, spent a lot of money on it. Now i just need it to be great again.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
We paid cash for this car. As new it would have problems especially with reverse. I almost had a severe accident because of this. The car does jerk switching gears. It pops out of reverse. It has always done this even as a new car. Honda thinks little of these problems. It has been a difficult expensive car. I did get it serviced mostly at Honda Dealerships. I don't dare to take it very far from home. So it has limited my travels. I don't trust it. The car is 2001 with 160,000 miles on it. The engine light is always on. I'm told to ignore it.
- dinahh, Mexico, ME, US