2002 Honda Odyssey ex with leather from North America - Comments

I believe I am the lucky one that although my Odyssey 2002 van has now blown the transmission once again, it did not keep jumping gears as some of you have explained. I am researching this topic as one Honda dealership states there was a recall and another dealership disagrees with this. I am now going to research how to contact Honda and discuss this with them. Any ideas???

My 02 Odyssey started having transmission issue after the 60K service. Random shift to neutral and back up to 3rd gear etc. Took it to the dealer who has been servicing the vehicle its entire life so far and was quoted $3400. Called Honda cust service and registered a case. Next day, the Service manager from the dealer called and said that he is in touch with the DPSM and would let me know if Honda is going to participate in the goodwill assistance. He called back next day and told me that the price on the repair has gone upto $4300 and Honda would participate in the goodwill with me having to pay $2K. I have been trying to get that lowered and no luck so far. have written a letter to Mr. Hiroyuki Yamada, VP of Service in American Honda. Let us see what he has to say.

Why my Honda Odyssey is my first… and LAST Honda I’ll ever own.

I bought a 2002 Honda Odyssey 7 years ago, based on the reputation of the company and the reputation of the vehicle at the time. I paid a premium price for it compared to the competition, because I wanted a solid vehicle I could rely on to transport my family.

I had kept up the maintenance on it per the schedule listed in the manual, and the vehicle performed very well. There were two recalls for it over the course of time, and those were handled by dealer. Honda had mailed me a recall notice each time and I was very impressed with that.

Everything went very well until this year, the year the warranty expired. Just a few months past the warranty period, I was having an issue with the transmission. I checked a number of on-line sites about it, including the government site (nhtsa.dot.gov) and was shocked to read of a prevalent transmission issue with Odyssey’s. There were literally hundreds of formal complaints filed on the government site for this one issue for the model year I had, describing the exact problems I was having, and even notice of a pending class action suit. Some of the filed complaints mentioned they did get up to 50% of the cost of a new transmission covered by Honda.

I took the vehicle to the dealer and they did confirm the transmission needed to be replaced and suggested I contact Honda to see if they would cover any cost even though the warranty had expired. The dealer’s service department said a remanufactured transmission with a 3 year/36,000 mile warranty would cost $3,750.

I contacted Honda and gave them this information, and they said a case manager would contact me in the next 2 business days to let me know what could be done.

Two days later I got a call from the case manager. I had the phone on speaker so my wife could hear it. He said he heard an echo over the phone and I thought it was because of the way the handset was positioned so I disconnected it. He said there was still an echo, which I thought was really odd because we have used the speaker phone numerous times before and no one had ever mentioned it. I picked up the handset and disconnected the speaker and my wife got on an extension phone. My wife let us both know she was on and started to explain a few things but was immediately interrupted by the case manager saying he will only speak with one person. I’m thinking at this point this guy is being a real jerk. My job is in customer relations and I know this attitude is totally unacceptable. So, to avoid any conflict, my wife hung up her phone.

The case manager said they may be able to do something if I can produce documentation that the vehicle had been serviced as outlined in the manual. He said the transmission fluid should have been replaced at the 30,000, 60,000 and 90,000 mile intervals and he sees it was only done once according to the dealer records. I said that’s because I had some maintenance done locally as the dealer was an hour’s round trip drive away. I said I would fax him the maintenance documents that I had done outside of the dealer.

I gathered up all of my documentation and was about to fax it over. However, when I checked the manual I was shocked to find it stated the transmission fluid was to be changed at the 45,000 and 90,000 mile intervals, not what the case manager had told me. I’m thinking at this point, Honda is going to jerk me around and it’s not worth wasting my time with them.

I took the vehicle to a local transmission shop who took the transmission apart to inspect it and found numerous substandard components in it that had failed. I completely trust the shop as it is one of the few in the area listed in the Better Business Bureau and has an A+ rating since 1995. They are completely rebuilding the transmission with higher quality parts and replacing the transmission cooler for approximately the same price that the dealer had offered for a remanufactured transmission. In addition, the shop will warranty the transmission for 7 years/100,000 miles.

With all that has happened… the attitude of the Honda representative, the offer of a replacement transmission likely to have the same issues happen down the road, the lack of inaction by Honda to properly address the issue in the first place… I can safely say this is my first… and LAST Honda I’ll ever own.