2000 Honda Odyssey EX review from North America

Automatic Transmission (three times)

Brakes (every 20,000 miles)

For the first 12,000 miles, we referred to this car as a "dream car". It had exceptional performance for a minivan.

At slightly under 12,000 miles, the brakes started to produce a squeal and felt as though they were grinding. The dealership that we bought the car from told us that they needed to be de-glazed. The grinding noise never went away, and 4,000 miles later, we took it in for the same problem. At that time, we were told that we needed a $500 brake job and that it was out of warranty now that we were beyond 12,000 miles.

At 26,000 miles, the first transmission died. To their credit, the dealership loaned us a car, and had the problem fixed within four days. At 60,000 miles, we were informed by the cheerful service manager that we were going to be the lucky recipients of yet another "new" transmission.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, Honda has had so much trouble with the powertrain on these cars that they have extended the warranty to 100,000 miles. There was no charge, but the prospect of having to replace the transmission every 30,000 miles is not a very pleasant one.

The good news is that Honda is doing so many of these now, that they had the remanufactured transmission in stock and fixed the car in three days. The really bad news is that the "new" remanufactured transmission sounds and slips worse than either of the first two and the car will be going in again.

One other interesting trick we ran into involved a recall for a faulty EGR valve. The symptom is that the check engine light comes on. A service notice has been sent to all Odyssey owners telling them to take the car in to their Honda dealers if the light comes on, and they will install a new EGR valve if this is found to be the problem. In our case, we did this only to be told that the problem was just a faulty fuel cap. We were then presented with a $95 bill for connecting the diagnostic equipment and a $9 fuel cap. I have so little confidence in their honesty now that I sincerely believe that they submitted the claim for a new EGR valve to Honda for credit, and then tried to charge us for a fuel cap which very likely wasn't faulty at all. They were unable to produce the faulty cap when we picked up the car. After arm-wrestling with the service manager, he dropped the $80 diagnostic fee.

Next time we'll take it to the local auto parts place that will do some very abbreviated diagnostics for free before taking it to Honda.

The car has also developed a shudder in the steering wheel. Even with an alignment, new tires, and several rebalances, no one can tell us what is wrong. The dealership told us that the CV joint boots needed replacement and that it could be the joints themselves. Due to the cost, we had another car dealer check it out to find that the boots were fine.

It's a great car performance-wise. It has undersized brakes and a poorly matched transmission. On top of it, Honda's sales and service philosophy before, during, and after the sale of the car is terrible. I not an attorney, but would be very open to participating in a class action suit against this company based on the number of people who seem to be experiencing the same problems I have had with our Odyssey and multiple Honda dealerships.