In article <Xns9ADFDE621BC19tegger@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>, tegger@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
says...
> The 1998 Accord is, as far as I can determine, not part of the
inherently
> defective crowd.
>
> Honda has very publicly admitted to the existence of several serious
> defects in V6 auto trannies for the '99 to '04 model years of various
> models, and has been generous in fixing them. Honda has had its eye on
> Toyota and their past troubles with certain 1MZ-FE 3.0 V6's, and is not
> eager to be tarred with the same brush.
>
> Your '98? Well, it's ten years old, with ten years of potential neglect
and
> abuse. The wrong fluid, neglected changes, who knows what.
> To "mashup" Curly and the rock group REM, "What's the Code, Kenneth?"
OK. I mistyped the model year in my original post. It's a '99, not a
'98. Purchased with 41K miles on it, as a certified used car from the
same dealer that's serviced it since then. The maintenance intervals as
specified in the owner's manual for severe conditions have been followed
since then (it gets well over 90 degrees here for several months out of
the year).
Since the tranny fluid changes have been performed at a Honda dealer, I
assume they're using Honda ATF. But this is the same dealer whose
service department aggressively pushes powerflu****ng the transmission
whenever the topic comes up. I have always refused to have it flushed,
but I did have them do a drain-and-fill (once, not 3x) about three
months ago when they said the fluid didn't look too good. It was due for
a fluid change at 120K (we're only at about 115K now), but I didn't want
to risk waiting for the 120K service if the fluid was showing its age.
I finally had a chance to drive the car today to get a better feel for
what was going on, since the extent of my wife's description of the
problem so far has been "it's ****fting funny". For the first part of our
trip today, it drove fine, with no problems. About midway through our
errands, after driving maybe 15-20 miles, I noticed a rough down****ft -
much rougher than normal, almost enough to chirp the tires. By the time
we made another couple of stops, it was very hesitant to up****ft. The
engine would rev higher, but the car would barely move, and when it did
finally up****ft, the up****fts were very abrupt and jerky. Down****fting
was similarly delayed and rough - the car would come to a complete stop,
and sit for a couple of seconds before the final down****ft would occur.
It eventually got to the point to where it was almost undrivable, and I
wasn't sure we were going to make it home, but we did. Oh, and the CEL
has yet to come back on since it was reset.
My wife mentioned that the problem seems to be worst in the afternoons,
which are obviously the hottest part of the day. I was hoping to buy a
little time to research the problem further, but based on our drive
today, the car is unsafe to drive with the transmission acting like
this, so I'm going to have to do something sooner rather than later. My
father suggested taking it to a transmission shop to see if it can be
repaired as opposed to swapping it out for a remanufactured tranny, but
I'm more inclined to start with calling Honda's US customer service
department. Since the model year is outside the scope of the warranty
extension, and since it would've been past the warranty period at this
point anyway, I don't expect a free ride, but I don't think some sort of
consideration is unreasonable. With proper maintenance, there's no
reason a transmission shouldn't last for the life of the car.
Dave
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