I bought this van in 2001 paid cash. Did not get any break what so ever because we have only one Honda dealer here in Corpus Christi, TX. Had it serviced at the dealer for 12 years with Honda oil and filter every 3,000mi. Then I did switched to synthetic oil and did it myself logged it in the owner manual. But every time they did it I got a free 21 multi point inspection like it or not.
During those inspections they would find dirty brake fluid and have flush the system for healthy price. But once they said that it was time to change my the drive and timing belts because I had over 60,000 miles. I told them to let me see those belts before you do it, well they looked fine. So I said no that's alright just leave it alone, because they looked good. They replied that if one of those would break it will take out my engine, so the 500 dollars now is a good deal!.
Called Autozone those belts are $ 20 ea. Well I told them I would think about it. Well many years later, 48000 miles, I step on the gas pedal it starts to go then slips. The check engine light came on, so did the TSC light. I was out of town north of Houston but was able to drive the 400 miles back to Corpus. Did fine on the freeway perfect just only when I stopped and had to step on the gas was the problem. Drove it to the dealer to see what they say. They said that clutch system malfunction turned my transmission fluid black. So I need a new transmission at $4861.
At home I see that they wrote TRANS FLUID DO TO LACK OF MAINTENANCE called him back he confirmed that sure it was me that made the transmission fail. If I would have changed the fluid at 45000 and 75000 mi. It would have never happened. Wow, so the Honda Odyssey does not have a history of transmission problems. Awesome I never knew that I had the ability to destroy transmissions before. So then I called Honda America got the opportunity to talk to three different ladies and give my vin # , address, e mail, and tell my story three different times. And the last lady said " I am so sorry to hear about your misfortune with your Honda Odyssey but our class action period has expired so offer any assistance any more". Is there anything else I can help you with?
So that's it folk's end of story. It will be a cold day in hell before I look at another Honda. 01/30/2015
come to find out this has been a problem from around 1999 to newer models it says they let every one know about the recall but for some reason it was never an official recall for 2001 i found it on the 2002 model so what do i have to do
i paid a lot for this vehicle. I trusted Hondas reputation and purchased so i would not have anything as major as transmission failure come into play. Too expensive to fix and certainly am not asking for anything other than a tranny that works for more than 10 years.
I bought this minivan back in 2007. I haven't had any issues until early this year when several codes started showing up. I was asked to replace egr valve, catalytic converter, full transmission flush. After the replacing the catalytic converter, it went without a problem for 1500 miles. All of a sudden early this week, the transmission started to slip on acceleration.
Earlier, when I took it to the dealer they recommended transmission rebuild. As I was outside warranty period and mileage, they said it will cost $4500. I felt betrayed by Honda company as they know that this is a design issue with their model and they didn't man up to fix it.
i was honda loyalist and this is my 2nd And LAST honda. But this incident has definitely opened my eyes. I will definitely try other brands.
I bought a 2001 Honda Odyssey in Aug 2001 and in June 2009 the transmission had to be replaced at 98000 miles (within extended warranty on miles and 2 months outside the extended warranty on months.
Now it is 145000 miles and this winter since January (I live in NJ) I notice that when it is cold and the engine is cold and I start driving without warming up around 20-25 mph the engine revs (possibly because the gear shift from 1st to 2nd or 2nd to 3rd doesn't happen smoothly). I want to forestall any major problems with the tranny since I hope to use it for another couple of years.
Took it to the Honda dealer who had installed the replacement transmission in June 2009 (36 month/36000 mile warranty). It is now little over 43 months and around 47000 miles on this transmission. They say that the transmission is slipping and will have to be replaced ($5500) and that replacing the fluid/flushing the transmission would not do anything. Asked about the pressure switches and they said that it is not the problem. What can I do other than replace the tranny? I read other forums and there was mention of class action for rebuilt but could not find any info.
Is slipping due to broken gear teeth? Are their transmissions so badly built that they fail in such a short time?
Any advice on further course of action other than replacing the tranny?
My 2001 Honda Odyssey auto transmission started showing signs of slippage at 69,000 miles. However, at 72,000 miles, D4 has been flashing with TCS light on, and Check Engine light on. Slippage occurs at 2nd and 3rd gears. I am now afraid of using this Odyssey since I find it unrealible. Transmission oil has been replaced routinely. I bought this Odyssey brand new with 100,000-mile extended warranty and had taken care of with routine maintenance. I just bought a 2012 Civic and 2011 Pilot last year since I believe in the Honda quality. I was not expecting my 2001 Odyssey to fail prematurely. I took my Odyssey during my military assignment overseas where I had the Navy Exchange service center perform engine oil change and other maintenance routinely per maintenance manual. I even had a Japanese Honda (Clio) dealer service my Odyssey while overseas. Tony Honda of Oahu serviced my Odyssey while assigned at Pearl Harbor, HI. I never received the notification of the Honda transmission recall. However, it was only recently when the transmission occurred anyway, 11 years after I originally bought it brand new. I planned of keeping this Odyssey for a very long time.
I hoping that American Honda will still replace my transmission but I know better. The $5K cost to replace the transmission. My engine runs great but becomes useless due to this unreliable transmission.
I bought my Honda Odyssey from a new/used dealership in August 2011. Since I bought it I have had a few technical difficulties with my sliding doors occasionally opening on there own when I turn my ignition off. I play it off as a ghost "Wilma". However, I am noticing my transmission slipping for the past few months. I just had my oil and transmission fluids changed, and yet it is still slipping. Also, my check engine light and maintenance light are on. I have pulled the positive cable from my battery to see if that will clear it, but it didn't.
I have a 2001 Honda Odyssey. I started to notice when we 1st got it the transmission slipped and changed gears at the wrong time. it was as though the car was designed not to coast. You had to accelerate or the trans would down shift. We took our car to the dealer for something else really and mentioned the trans and found out about the recall and had our trans repaired for free. do not recall the year but the car was about 3 years old or so.
Today, while on the highway i noticed as i tried to accelerate the RPMs shot up to 5000 or more, but i was not accelerating. the RPMs concerned me because my Honda Pilot had a similar situation a few months back. thank goodness i was doing 70+. it allowed me to change lanes and make it to the shoulder. I placed the car in park, and put it back in drive, reverse, D3, 2 then 1 and nothing. as soon as i stepped on the accelerator the RPMs shot to the moon, but no movement.
Frankly i am pissed. i have had a honda accord-95, civic-99, and pilot-06. the Accord got me hooked on Hondas. absolutely no problem. a radiator, and a clutch after teaching my wife how to drive a manual trans. That's it. the Odyssey - a new trans via warranty, the Civic wasn't prepped right and did not have enough oil and required a new engine. Honda Pilot's transmission needed new solenoids about 3-4 months ago, a $750-800 repair. I THINK I AM DONE WITH HONDAS
I bought this van last year with 109,100 miles on it and found out soon after that there was a recall on the transmission that went to 109,000 miles. I called the honda dealership and asked if it was covered and they said that first of all the time limit expired, and second of all I was outside of the 109,000 miles limit. Fair enough, I wouldn't expect them to make any exceptions for me...a first time honda owner. Anyway, the transmission started slipping shortly after all that and it progessively got worse to the point that I needed to either sell it to someone who wants to spend the money to get it fixed or trade it in....I was only getting offers from dealerships for $3,100-$3,400 on trade...fortunately I found a couple of guys who were mechanically inclined who knew what the issues were fully and they gave me $3,800 cash....I practically gave the van away!!!
I think Honda should be ashamed of themselves, I remember when they used to be a reliable household name that people could rely on....not the case since year 2000 and on. I actually had been looking for another, newer, honda odyssey until I read all the issues people have been having on with them on this website, and now I will not waste my money again on a Honda.
My transmission failed last week at 128k miles. After researching this issue after my tranny failure on this website and www.odysseytransmission.com I do not trust Honda to repair my transmission as once it has been repaired by them the rebuilt tranny fails again in a short period of time. I have lost all confidence in Honda. I have had 4 instances over the years where my Check Engine and TCS warning lights have come on and each time Honda told me it was an issue with the EGR Valve and carbon buildup in the housing that it connects to. The EGR valve was replaced each of these times and the housing cleaned the last 2 times. Never did they mention that the tranny may have issues. Last week both of these lights came on again just a few months after the last service of the EGR valve and housing. The transmission started slipping and then banging into gear jolting everyone inside. Since our Honda dealership in Leesburg has now closed and the closest dealership is around 30+ miles from here I took my Odyssey to AAMCO. They said that that the torque converter has failed and would require the transmission to be rebuilt or replaced with a remanufactured transmission. Also they told me that the Catalytic Converter has failed now as well. I now have to make a decision if I want to spend around $5200 to replace both of these issues or sell my beloved Odyssey for basically junk as the trade-in value is around $4800!!! Whatever happened to this once great auto manufacturer? They have really gone downhill fast when it comes to reliability and quality! I am really upset and frankly scared to purchase another Honda as it doesn't seem any of the Odyssey's transmissions are built sound and safe! I can not afford to have my family and children ride in a vehicle that is unsafe and unreliable as I do travel for business occasionally.
This is the 4th damn transmission in 6 years. I will never buy another Honda. The dealer nor American Honda will do anything to help me. This really sucks.
This failure was on the replacement transmission after the original one was replaced at 81,000 miles in March of 2008 under the extended warranty recall. The dealership (Valley Honda in Monroeville, PA) originally diagnosed the problems as a broken engine mount and transmission mount AND a "dirty" transmission fluid. I really questioned this diagnoses because the the transmission was slipping/failing this time in almost the same manner as it did in 2008 when the first transmission was replaced. But they insisted. So I had just the mounts replaced.
When they called to say the van was ready for pickup I specifically asked if they had test drove the vehicle to confirm if it fixed the problem...they claimed they did. But of course moments later after picking up the van the problem was still there and just as bad as it was originally. So after my irate call back to them they then insisted that because I didn't have them change the transmission fluid that must be the problem. After arguing about this for several minutes I said, fine I'll bring the van back for the fluid change, but if that didn't fix the problem I wasn't going to pay for it. So a week later (appointments at this dealership are very hard to come by...) they said that replacing the fluid wasn't necessary, the whole transmission needed to be replaced. At a cost of around $4,500. I was so angry I didn't even pick the van up that day.
When I did return to the dealership I spoke with the manager but he said that there really wasn't any recourse that he could take as they had already spoken with the district manager and they had declined to cover anything since we had already gotten a "free" transmission under the recall. I called the customer service phone number at American Honda and they actually claimed that they have no control over the district managers for their company and she could "send him a note" about my complaint! When I questioned this response the person just said that was the way it was. I asked who or indeed if anyone would be getting back to me once this "note" was sent and they didn't really know but assumed it to be the service department from the Honda dealership. The "when" she didn't know. I even asked if there was reference or complaint number that would be associated with my complaint and there was none. Needless to say, it has been over two weeks and there has been no response.
So onward with life, I took the van to a local transmission repair shop. They diagnosed the problem within a few hours. Remember how Honda said I needed a new $4,500 transmission for what they called "trans long shift from 1st to 2nd, rev very high trans slipping, harsh shifting up and when down shifting, internal problem in transmission, needs trans"? Well the real problem was much simpler than that. The problem was actually a failed 2nd gear pressure switch. It is mounted external to the transmission and was giving bad readings during the diagnosis. Cost................a mere $170 including the part, labor and tax! (Also they also had the part the next day and the van was repaired within hours.) So this repair shop asked who told me I needed a new transmission and they were completely in shock that it was the dealership. Their impression was that this was very easy to diagnose and any decent mechanic should have been able to figure this out based on the test drive, my description of what the van does (which was violent jerking/shaking under moderate acceleration when the van was trying to shift from 1st to 2nd gear) and even Honda's own description on their diagnosis.
I have now driven the van for almost a week and it works like new! I can't even express how disappointed I am in Honda's famous "reliability", their customer service, and now even their ability to diagnose what turned out to be a rather simple and inexpensive repair.
Kudos to World Class Transmission in Delmont, PA who correctly diagnoses and fixed the problem and shame on Honda for such a pitiful attempt at extorting thousands of dollars from me for a completely unnecessary replacement. Honda has just lost a customer that has previously purchased 5 previous Honda/Acura vehicles in the past and was soon to be looking for 2 more and has also influenced the purchase of several others from family and friends over what amounts to $170!!!! They are just like many other companies that just don't care what impact their decisions have on the outcome of their total business future. I hope this complaint helps others to have the courage to try other repair facilities instead of just Honda's...getting a second opinion can really pay off in the end!
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
Great vehicle until the transmission died, beware.
- Michael O., Longmont, CO, US