You may find that adjusting the mirror slightly up, down or to one side or the other will resolve your sun visor "contact" concerns.
You will definitely find that it is much easier to adjust the fan speed on a Navigation-equipped Accord by pressing the voice command button on the steering wheel and saying "FAN SPEED TWO", "FAN SPEED THREE", etc. It couldn't be easier.
They could have given me a dial to change fan speed. I find it annoying to have to toggle through several screens to adjust the fan speed, turn the ac on/off, etc.
As for voice command... it is frequently inaccurate and does not work well with high levels of ambient noise (windows or sunroof open). You also have to interrupt the music or talk that you are listening to on the radio/satellite to use it. Not to mention having to interrupt a conversation if there is someone else in the car. And forget about it if there are several people or any children in the car.
You also cannot use the voice command on certain nav screens and if the screen is off.
As much as I love the Honda nav system it does have its short commings.
1. It should let you sort name searches by distance to travel. It is tiring to have to search through twelve different "categories" of results to find a restaurant with a common name. In other words, it gives me Tony's Pizza in California and Texas even though I am in North Carolina.
2. Too many screens/buttons needed to perform simple functions. Give me an fan speed/AC knob so that if the screen is off I can still change these settings. Having to look at the screen is distracting and sometimes dangerous. There are no tactile feedback which forces you to take your eyes off the road.
3. The unit is mounted in the center of the trunk limiting cargo volume.
There are others that I can't think of right now. Don't get me wrong, overall it is a fantastic system. Just that it could be a little better.
has been considered the class of the industry. But as with many things you can't please everyone. Why would they put a button for the climate control when you have the choice of voice command or touch screen? That's too much redundancy. You could try the I-drive in BMW though.
Why use the a/c with the windows open? Turn it off before you open them and back on after they are closed. It's pretty simple really.
good post. all valid points. i wouldn't be surprised to see NAV updates in the upcoming model year for 2005 or 2006. electronic things are easy to design and apply feature changes.
Like I said in my post, I love the nav system. I think it is well worth the money.
gee35coupe: They should put a knob for fan speed so that I don't have to access the nav screen. It would be faster and safer. A knob can be found and adjusted without taking your eyes off the road - impossible with the nav system. Many other cars have this type of redundancy. Why have a volume knob for the radio AND the steering wheel control? It makes life easier.
For the reasons I stated in my last post, voice command just doesn't cut it. Nice concept but in my opinion fails in real world application. I only use it to find restaurants, gas stations, etc. Not useful for basic climate control and radio functions. It is irritating and time consuming to have to raise the windows every time I want to use it. I live in a hot/humid climate and on hot days I like to keep the a/c on even when I have the windows open.
twizard7: When it is warm out (i.e. not blazing hot) I like to keep the fan on with the a/c off (and the windows open). Why use the a/c if it is nice outside? If the car temp is set to lower than the ambient temp and the a/c is off, changing the temp will not alter the fan speed.
set and forget. Radio controls get fiddled with constantly. The idea behind AUTO climate control is that it's automatic. Hands off. Let the computer do it. IMHO I don't think Honda considered folk might find it inconvenient to not be able to constantly want to adjust the climate control.
It's like the 6 disk changer. It could be considered a PITA to have to wait so long to change the CD's. What if you wanted change them out while driving. It would take a lot of concentration to push the disk you want to remove, wait for it to cycle around so it can eject, remove the disc, then push load for wach CD you want to replace. Very complicated for someome driving. But Honda, and most other makes, figured that you have a 6 disc changer so you shouldn't want to change the discs that often.
despite the problems i have with my Accord, i will say that the climate control is the FIRST fully automatic unit i have ever used. close to perfect. it knows when and if you need a/c which even BMW can't seem to master. heck, even most home thermostats won't turn a/c or heat on when it is needed, you have to select it yourself.
I did not want the Navigation, on purpose, not just due to the cost of it. That's more luxury than I needed. My EX V6 without it allows for plenty of manual adjustment to the climate control. I don't travel by car to many places that I can't find my way to though so if that is your main purpose I think one would just get used to talking to the machine. Right?
The Accord auto dual climate control is great. Set it and forget it. Much better and quieter than our Highlander's auto climate control and more versatile than the dual climate control on our Grand Caravan. I have used it manually in a number of instances with no real drama. Just about he best climate control i have run across.
I agree. The dual climate control in Auto mode works very well. Most times that's where I leave it. My wife prefers the manual mode most of the time, but even then she just sets the temp and fan speed (leaves the air flow as I've set it.) I don't know if those folks with the Nav. have read the book for proper operation of it. Even with my non-Nav there were things I had to look for in the book to get full use and appreciation for the system. My main point is that if you bought the Nav system you should have been satisfied that it's the right one for you B4 the purchase.
Kind of a broad statement since some Accords have gone hundreds of thousands of miles with no problems. Do you mean every year Accord with either manual or automatic transmission and both 4 and 6 cylinder engines?
You are exactly right about the tranny problem I have had two problems now. Only now did I go on line to see if others have had problems and you can see them on this site going back to posts in 2001. You will also see others say we are blowing the problem out of proportion all the way back to 2001. You are right there has been a problem and continues to be. It will take others like you to get the word out to hold Honda accountable. Do not let anyone shout you down. Call the NHTSA complaint toll free number @ 1 (888) 327 4236. This really doesn't solve your immediate issue but it helps bring awareness to this issue. When you check their data the problems in the past have about doubled every year except for now with 2003 which are already ahead of 2002's. For a site with a complete list try http://www.mycarstats.com/auto_Complaints/HONDA_Complaints.asp Good luck. My fuel gauge has been off also for years and I never bothered to mention it. You would think (I did) that Honda would be up front come out wit a notice and informed me about that on their own. It is a problem I just lived with over the years like the slipping of my tranny until it quit altogether. In both cases I just trusted both Honda and my dealer when I took it in for service told them about the problems to be up front based on their knowledge past Honda reputation. My family members (who live in three different states) all switched from American and bought six Hondas since 1998. All three of the Accords have had transmission problems. I never found out until this past week when my second one went out in 64,000 miles and mentioned it to them that they too had had problems. Keep up your efforts to inform others, to be sure from past experience Honda or your dealer will not be the one to let you know!
Such as the obove post...I saw where compaints steadily decreased with each passing year from 1998. Sure there ARE issues....But what car you gonna buy that has the same other attributes?
I mean come on...There are around 2,000,000 of the 98-2002's and 800,000 or so 2003/4's. If they were as bad as some people say, the landscape would be littered with Accords. Especially since they don't include roadside.(another complaint some have had)
By the way, we have personally owned 5 new Accords since 1999 and no transmission problems. We didn't like the general operation of them, but they ran just fine. My sister owns a 2000 V6 with 100,000. Tranny is fine. EGR valve went out though. Maybe your family is unlucky or abusive.
Even if 1% of Accords have an issue with the tranny, that's 20,000 Accords from the prev generation. I wonder what is the defect rate for 2-5 year old human beings?
Is some people think every single Accord (or some other makes) should be perfect. EVERYTHING has a some defect rate. Even people. Not very hard to wrap your mind around really.
It is a shame that when you come on a site like this that is set up to discuss quality control that a few individuals jump in and attempt to belittle your observations and disparage the driving skills of you or your family as an excuse for poor quality. In just a few days on this site I could see this trend as evident as the trend in the decrease in Honda quality over the last several years. You can also see a clear trend of belittling and abusive comments as far back as the isellhondas comments on page #1 of these posts in May 2001. To be sure tlauro it is not you or I with the problems (other then those with the car we bought, and the Honda name we mistakenly trusted.) As for the rest of the individuals that fail to understand this Edmonds site is devoted to the open discussion of quality control issues, not personal attacks. I may be new to the site but this observation has been stated by several other individuals as far back as May 2001 as well. It has been over five years and yet some people still fail to understand, no wonder the company continues to have the same problems year after year. Let's stick to the issues and drop the attacks. As far as supporting data to a problem trend from two years ago in addition to the more recent comments mentioned by you: September 23, 2002 BY JEFF GREEN BLOOMBERG NEWS TORRANCE, Calif. -- Honda Motor Co.'s U.S. unit extended warranties on automatic transmissions on about 1.2 million cars and minivans because the components may fail or wear out early. The move includes 2000 and 2001 Accord and Prelude cars and Odyssey minivans; 2000 to 2002 models of the Acura 3.2 TL car; 2001 and 2002 Acura 3.2 CL cars; and some 2003 models of both Acura models, spokesman Kurt Antonius said. About 2 percent of those vehicles have experienced the transmission problems, which include slow or erratic shifting, Honda said. The transmissions will be covered for seven years or 100,000 miles. The standard full warranty is three years or 36,000 miles for the Honda vehicles and four years or 50,000 miles for the Acura cars. Honda doesn't plan a recall, Antonius said. "If this is the only instance, it's not a big issue because it's unusual for Honda," said Alan Baum, an analyst at automotive forecaster Planning Edge in Farmington Hills, Michigan. "If it became a pattern, then it might hurt them." Honda finished second to Toyota Motor Corp. in the most recent J.D. Power & Associates study of initial quality, an auto industry benchmark. Between 1990 and 2000, the most recent year for which full statistics are available, Honda had 32 safety recalls, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. General Motors Corp., the largest automaker, had 334 in that period, the agency said. Owners will be sent letters informing them of the warranty extension, and consumers who already had a repair done after their warranty expired will be reimbursed, Antonius said. Vehicles that have transmission problems will have the transmission replaced, he said.
Overblown....I checked webster.com and found one that fits. INFLATED <overblown claims> <overblown rhetoric>; also : PRETENTIOUS
Then let's just see where "pretentious" gets us. : characterized by pretension : as a : making usually unjustified or excessive claims (as of value or standing) <the pretentious fraud who assumes a love of culture that is alien to him -- Richard Watts> b : expressive of affected, unwarranted, or exaggerated importance, worth, or stature <pretentious language> <pretentious houses>
That's what is a shame. When someone has a problem with an Accord and they come in with doom and gloom like Honda has had some great decline in quality. There is no evidence to support that. Even the last link showed where Accord quality actually increased from year to year. From your pastie... Honda finished second to Toyota Motor Corp. in the most recent J.D. Power & Associates study of initial quality, an auto industry benchmark. Between 1990 and 2000, the most recent year for which full statistics are available, Honda had 32 safety recalls, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Second best ain't bad. Especially to Toyota. And they say 2 percent of the transmissions have had problems....That could be a modest number when you look at total production. Why not find out how many other makes will extend the warranty on a major component if they find that 2 percent of them have a problem.
For one family to have had three bad transmissions out of 6 seems out of the ordinary. I have personally owned half as many Accords and have had no issues whatsoever. Does that make my anecdotal evidence any more important than yours? Nope. That's why we have companies like Consumer Reports and and others that compile data to show true reliablity.
Like I said, I don't know how your family maintains/treats the cars they own, but 6 is far off the number of that were produced. Additionally every one of the cars listed above are V6's. I guess you are gonna say next that all the transmissions that failed were V6's.
In that case you are doubly unlucky. V6's only make up a modest amount of Accord sales. And if all the V6's in your family had tranny failures...I wouldn't go out in any thunderstorms. But I might run out and buy a lottery ticket.
"It is a shame that when you come on a site like this that is set up to discuss quality control that a few individuals jump in and attempt to belittle your observations and disparage the driving skills of you or your family as an excuse for poor quality."
get used to it
in this "town", you better believe that there can't be anything wrong with your Honda. how dare you even type the words "Honda" and "problem" in the same sentence! if something is wrong, it is clearly because you don't know how to drive, or you must have broken your car somehow. KIDDING!
you have to understand how things work. if you complain, it starts to make other people question their own decisions. and it seems that a lot of people aren't mentally equipped to handle that without immediately being rude and dismissive. you have to take the good with the bad here.
you will eventually get some helpful feedback on Edmunds, just takes time sometimes. don't give up!
Post by Mot the hopple "It seems that MSN Auto has indicated that the transmissions in Honda Accords are problematic."
Post by Tlauro: "Broad but true for the Automatic Tranny's in Accords of the 6th gen and now evidently 7th gen form. Check on the various honda message boards/forums that are true enthusiast boards. Town Hall talk isn't the same.
Those were the posts that started this and the post from Jcowan added his personal experience as if to justify them. There were no complaints made, just the statement that "Honda Accord transmissions are problematic".
If someone were to come in here and say, "my transmission is giving me problems" we would all say there have been issues so take it to your dealer and have them look at it. There are several instances of that.
But when someone says "all Honda Accord brakes are crap" (sound familiar?) of course you will have a few people question that statement as we have here about the trannys.
i don't understand why it isn't fair to say all 2003 V6 Accords have tranmission problems. the government and Honda realized it - are in the process of a huge safety recall. they wouldn't recall the cars if their wasn't a problem, would they? that would be silly.
But then again, that's not what was said in the previously mentioned posts. No exception was made in either case.
But if you read the summary of the recall, it states the cause of the problem and the remedy. All of the transmissions will not need replacement but as a precaution, they will install a oil coolant kit to those that show little to no wear. Doesn't sound like all to me.
The recall notices were supposedly sent out at the end of 6/04. I have nor received one as of yet. Has anyone else?? Also does anyone with a 2003 Accord Ex coupe have/had a problem with rain leaking in the passager side door/window??
there is a recall. per Honda. regulated by the Federal Govt. on ALL 2003 V6 Accords, and some 2004. is that what you are asking?
if ALL 2003's weren't effected, they ALL wouldn't be recalled. simple as that. Honda isn't in business to service cars if they don't have to. thats for SURE!
Honda realized that under certain conditions these ***could*** have a problem. They took a proactive approach and recalled the affected cars so they could inspect them and install an oil jet kit that will eliminate any possible problem.
To date, our shop has inspected a lot of these affected cars and made the retro fit.
They have found, so far ***ONE*** high mileage Odyssey that was questionable when they inspected it. We replaced the transmission at no charge to the customer.
justin: Thanks for all the help. Because of individuals like you that take the time to put out the facts I was well prepared to talk with the Honda Rep in CA. After discussing my particular problems and service records which were all documented in the Honda data base files Honda agreed today to pay the full replacement cost of this my third tranny in my 99 Accord V-6 at 96,000 miles. Thanks to the information you and others like you provided I had the extra source data to make a valid argument. There was a problem in my first 99 tranny with a loud clunk when in reverse, yes it is true just like many others had reported on this site in 2001. Honda replaced it under warranty at 32,000 in 2001. And yes the new tranny began slipping at around 50,000 and then failed completely with the corresponding engine warning light and code at 64,000. My car had been driven in a normal manner and serviced by Honda dealers. Neither of my two Toyotas or my other Honda (civic manual) have had any problems with brakes, tranny, or fuel gauges. Yes the rest of my family in NJ and NY both own V-6 Accords and yes Honda has paid the full replacement cost for their repairs as well. Maybe because there was/is a problem. Once again if not for intelligent discussion of these legitimate problems I would have been out $3,800 as I would have never thought to ask if it could be other then just me. My fuel gauge has been off for years as well and I have never bothered to complain about that and still live with it. I did not know there was a problem with those either. I had never thought or known there was a major tranny problem either until it happened to me the second time. To those of you that do notice problems please continue to take the time to properly report, comment and read sites like this. This saved me a bunch of money personally and because of the way Honda is now handling the concern their reputation as well. Justin you were 100% right, thank you.
I guess you are right, when I do go back and look at previous posts by isellhondas from three years ago the way you break them into short paragraphs really does help get your message across.
I have cut them and added them below to show the striking impact of your comments three years running. By the way this was when I was having the second of my three transmissions installed after it made a loud clunking noise.
This site is about Identifying and fixing problems no matter how some individuals wish to cloud the issues.
Once again my thanks to people like Justin who understand what quality and safety and customer satisfaction and this site are all about.
I have spent 27 years in aviation maintenance and it is people who fail to be open minded and listen to legitimate problems that get people killed.
Just so you do not have to go back to page one.
Much ado about nothing. by isellhondas May 22, 2001 (11:44 am) Forget the fact (if you can) that I sell Hondas. The "problems" mentioned here have been greatly overblown.
Any car can and will have an occasional problem. Since Hondas are so reliable, when something DOES happen it gets front page news. They are better than ever!
First I ever heard of this was right here, in Town Hall. I'll repeat, this was very much overblown.
A supplier, unbeknownst to Honda decided to change specs on some part in the V-6 transmissions. This would cause a loud "clunk" while backing up. It did not cause total failure.
Honda was blindslided by this.And, few cars were affected.
To this day, I have NEVER heard this clunk and I've backed up literally hundreds of them. The problem cars were fixed under warranty, case closed.
If anselmo wants to think Hondas aren't as good as before, I'll respect his opinion even though I totally disagree.
As you can see, I've owned three Accords. NONE of my Hondas have experienced quality control issues even worth mentioning. That is a much better record than the vast majority of brands that have EVER been on the market.
Surely, you will find problems with anything mechanical. However, you probably won't find too many automobile brands more satisfying to their owners than Honda has been. That is well illustrated by the reliability statistics reported by ACTUAL OWNERS of about 600,000 cars a year in Consumer Reports.
Yes I have had a busy four days and thanks to everyone. As I said 29 years in aviation why do you think I only own Honda cars and Toyota trucks! I understand what these companies have stood for all these years and support them and forums like this that help us all understand them better. As you said four very busy days researching a $3,800 personal problem and many thanks to all of you that have taken the time over the past several years to track these issues to allow a novice like me to benefit from your knowledge and experience. Honestly thank you to everyone for all the help.
is that every "responsible" person is very paranoid. not that is is bad, but it makes work very hard.
When they see "one' problem, their first question is:
"Find out how many of the cars sold have this problem"
He doesn't worry about the "how" part of it.
Unless he has a very efficient team of Design & Production manager who can thump their chest and say that the possibility of having a defect using these design in conjunction with the mfg techniques is such and such.
This is the problem with evidence we tend to call "anecdotal".
The term "anecdotal" doesn't mean "wrong" or "invalid".
What anecdotal means is that it is evidence that has not been subjected to scientific method.
So really when people bicker about anecdotal evidence what they are stumbling over is the lack of any study to quantify what has been observed.
Once somebody finally figures out how many Hondas per 100 actually reported a certain problem, this tends to settle everyone down.
In addition to the "anecdotal" problem, there is the problem of the "theory of big numbers". A problem seems bigger when the number of cases which it is spread upon is small. So in these forums, you have maybe 20 people, of which 5 say they have the problem and 15 say they don't. So it seems like a lot of problems. But spread that out over one million cars and the averages plummet and the problem seems a lot smaller.
Anyway, without a scientific approach to the problem, it's hard to know what's happening.
EXAMPLE: Wall Street Journal just ran an article on Toyota's quality control problems, and they had some good facts and figures to show pros and cons of the company's strengths and weaknesses. In other words, not only were there statistics, but there were parts of Toyota doing great and parts doing less than great. So again, sweeping statements would be hard to justify.
I'm writing all this so as to encourage all of you to not be so personal in your comments. These forums are about cars not people.
My wife is a Honda fan since her first car in 81. I purchased 2 Honda's on Y2K, yes all the world was in panic and I was writing checks equaling 40 grand. I brought home a 00 civic for my teenager and an Accord 4 door ex-L for the wife. The transmission was clunking on day 2. Our driveway is on a inlcine upwards and getting out of P into R caused a worrisome noise and also while riding in reverse there was additional noises. salesman told me to drive the car back to the dealers lot and select any other car I wanted, at no extra cost. The wife told me to get a coupe and not a "old ladies sedan". I obliged and brought home a silver 00 ex-L V-6. We have the car 4 years and have logged a meager 31,000 miles. I have a long list of things that went wrong with this car, however the latest incident has caused me to vow never to purchase a Honda product again. The SRS light went on and the diagnosis is we need to replace a major component of the system, otherwise the airbags will not deploy properly, if at all. Cost $300 to $400. At the same time the check engine and service engine light were blinking as well, I thought my dash was the Las Vegas Strip and I was thinking Yugo, Fiat, Edsel etc. What a garbage car, at 31,000 miles ! Other issues I cannot accept, arrogant limited 3 year 36 K warranty, engine leaking coolant from manifold where many hoses connect to motor, 3 radios replaced and on last replacement the security code was missed and I had to pinch it myself and enter and re program the radio, a transmission that lurches not shifts, uneven paint with fade spots from factory, wind can chip my paint on hood let alone stones or road debris, rough unfix able idle, clunking power window, intake manifold dirt causing car to stall, shall I go on? I was a jerk, I paid cash ($25K) for a over hyped product. Never again buddy, from now I lease and let the headaches be someone elses. My current value is about $14K, so I have experienced $11K depreciation in 4 years? I spoke to the dealer this week about SRS, I was blown off, never again, never again.
I was referring to dealerflorida. If you check out his profile you will see that he is also in the LS400/430 room complaing about that car as well. I was saying that if you are unfortunate enough to get a bad Accord AND a bad LS430 then he just has terrible luck with cars.
Folks, I own a 2003 Accord V6. This past week my wife was involved in an accident where none of the air bags deployed. I thought this was odd seeing that she was hit on the front passenger of the bumper between 25-35 mph! Yes, she was wearing her seatbelt and only suffered some brusing and stiffness, but I found it odd that none of the airbads deployed.
She didn't think about it until I mentioned it to her. You see, I am 950 miles away at a jobsite and can't get home to see the car, so all I can do is go by her description.
Car was brought to a repair facility that Honda recommended since we recently moved into the area and have no idea as to good/bad body shops. The local dealer has no body shop but uses this shop for all its work.
Anyway, when the folks at the shop saw the damage, they told my wife that we have a problem and when pressed as to what the problem was, they commented that we need to talk to Honda to find out why the airbags did not deploy. In their opinion, the bags should have went off.
Now, one reason we bought the V6 was becasue of the added bags i.e. for protection since my wife drives this car 90 percent of the time.
I need some advise here on what if any avenues we can proceed on. Issues that I can't find out are at what impact speeds do the airbags deploy? Are there specific target zones i.e. strictly head on, side on, rear, or shouldn't they deploy on angled hits on the front?
Lastly, we are not feeling very safe even with having 6 airbags. Really what good are they if they don't deploy? Again, the estimated speed of impact was 25-35 from the hitting vehicle on my Accord at approx. the same speed. This calculates to around 50mph as far as I can tell and yet no airbag deployment?
I would appreciate if anyone has any advice on this airbag issue along with a idea as to how Honda intends to fix this problem if indeed it is an actual failure of the airbag system.
Comments
You will definitely find that it is much easier to adjust the fan speed on a Navigation-equipped Accord by pressing the voice command button on the steering wheel and saying "FAN SPEED TWO", "FAN SPEED THREE", etc. It couldn't be easier.
As for voice command... it is frequently inaccurate and does not work well with high levels of ambient noise (windows or sunroof open). You also have to interrupt the music or talk that you are listening to on the radio/satellite to use it. Not to mention having to interrupt a conversation if there is someone else in the car. And forget about it if there are several people or any children in the car.
You also cannot use the voice command on certain nav screens and if the screen is off.
As much as I love the Honda nav system it does have its short commings.
1. It should let you sort name searches by distance to travel. It is tiring to have to search through twelve different "categories" of results to find a restaurant with a common name. In other words, it gives me Tony's Pizza in California and Texas even though I am in North Carolina.
2. Too many screens/buttons needed to perform simple functions. Give me an fan speed/AC knob so that if the screen is off I can still change these settings. Having to look at the screen is distracting and sometimes dangerous. There are no tactile feedback which forces you to take your eyes off the road.
3. The unit is mounted in the center of the trunk limiting cargo volume.
There are others that I can't think of right now. Don't get me wrong, overall it is a fantastic system. Just that it could be a little better.
Why use the a/c with the windows open? Turn it off before you open them and back on after they are closed. It's pretty simple really.
gee35coupe:
They should put a knob for fan speed so that I don't have to access the nav screen. It would be faster and safer. A knob can be found and adjusted without taking your eyes off the road - impossible with the nav system. Many other cars have this type of redundancy. Why have a volume knob for the radio AND the steering wheel control? It makes life easier.
For the reasons I stated in my last post, voice command just doesn't cut it. Nice concept but in my opinion fails in real world application. I only use it to find restaurants, gas stations, etc. Not useful for basic climate control and radio functions. It is irritating and time consuming to have to raise the windows every time I want to use it. I live in a hot/humid climate and on hot days I like to keep the a/c on even when I have the windows open.
twizard7:
When it is warm out (i.e. not blazing hot) I like to keep the fan on with the a/c off (and the windows open). Why use the a/c if it is nice outside? If the car temp is set to lower than the ambient temp and the a/c is off, changing the temp will not alter the fan speed.
It's like the 6 disk changer. It could be considered a PITA to have to wait so long to change the CD's. What if you wanted change them out while driving. It would take a lot of concentration to push the disk you want to remove, wait for it to cycle around so it can eject, remove the disc, then push load for wach CD you want to replace. Very complicated for someome driving. But Honda, and most other makes, figured that you have a 6 disc changer so you shouldn't want to change the discs that often.
kudos to Honda for that!
Check on the various honda message boards/forums that are true enthusiast boards. Town Hall talk isn't the same.
Problems have a tendency to get amplified way beyond reality in these forums.
I mean come on...There are around 2,000,000 of the 98-2002's and 800,000 or so 2003/4's. If they were as bad as some people say, the landscape would be littered with Accords. Especially since they don't include roadside.(another complaint some have had)
By the way, we have personally owned 5 new Accords since 1999 and no transmission problems. We didn't like the general operation of them, but they ran just fine. My sister owns a 2000 V6 with 100,000. Tranny is fine. EGR valve went out though. Maybe your family is unlucky or abusive.
Even if 1% of Accords have an issue with the tranny, that's 20,000 Accords from the prev generation. I wonder what is the defect rate for 2-5 year old human beings?
What are you talking about? I think you're venturing into some odd comparison territory.
September 23, 2002
BY JEFF GREEN
BLOOMBERG NEWS
TORRANCE, Calif. -- Honda Motor Co.'s U.S. unit extended warranties on automatic transmissions on about 1.2 million cars and minivans because the components may fail or wear out early.
The move includes 2000 and 2001 Accord and Prelude cars and Odyssey minivans; 2000 to 2002 models of the Acura 3.2 TL car; 2001 and 2002 Acura 3.2 CL cars; and some 2003 models of both Acura models, spokesman Kurt Antonius said. About 2 percent of those vehicles have experienced the transmission problems, which include slow or erratic shifting, Honda said.
The transmissions will be covered for seven years or 100,000 miles. The standard full warranty is three years or 36,000 miles for the Honda vehicles and four years or 50,000 miles for the Acura cars. Honda doesn't plan a recall, Antonius said.
"If this is the only instance, it's not a big issue because it's unusual for Honda," said Alan Baum, an analyst at automotive forecaster Planning Edge in Farmington Hills, Michigan. "If it became a pattern, then it might hurt them."
Honda finished second to Toyota Motor Corp. in the most recent J.D. Power & Associates study of initial quality, an auto industry benchmark. Between 1990 and 2000, the most recent year for which full statistics are available, Honda had 32 safety recalls, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. General Motors Corp., the largest automaker, had 334 in that period, the agency said.
Owners will be sent letters informing them of the warranty extension, and consumers who already had a repair done after their warranty expired will be reimbursed, Antonius said. Vehicles that have transmission problems will have the transmission replaced, he said.
INFLATED <overblown claims> <overblown rhetoric>; also : PRETENTIOUS
Then let's just see where "pretentious" gets us.
: characterized by pretension : as a : making usually unjustified or excessive claims (as of value or standing) <the pretentious fraud who assumes a love of culture that is alien to him -- Richard Watts> b : expressive of affected, unwarranted, or exaggerated importance, worth, or stature <pretentious language> <pretentious houses>
That's what is a shame. When someone has a problem with an Accord and they come in with doom and gloom like Honda has had some great decline in quality. There is no evidence to support that. Even the last link showed where Accord quality actually increased from year to year. From your pastie...
Honda finished second to Toyota Motor Corp. in the most recent J.D. Power & Associates study of initial quality, an auto industry benchmark. Between 1990 and 2000, the most recent year for which full statistics are available, Honda had 32 safety recalls, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
Second best ain't bad. Especially to Toyota. And they say 2 percent of the transmissions have had problems....That could be a modest number when you look at total production. Why not find out how many other makes will extend the warranty on a major component if they find that 2 percent of them have a problem.
For one family to have had three bad transmissions out of 6 seems out of the ordinary. I have personally owned half as many Accords and have had no issues whatsoever. Does that make my anecdotal evidence any more important than yours? Nope. That's why we have companies like Consumer Reports and and others that compile data to show true reliablity.
Like I said, I don't know how your family maintains/treats the cars they own, but 6 is far off the number of that were produced. Additionally every one of the cars listed above are V6's. I guess you are gonna say next that all the transmissions that failed were V6's.
In that case you are doubly unlucky. V6's only make up a modest amount of Accord sales. And if all the V6's in your family had tranny failures...I wouldn't go out in any thunderstorms. But I might run out and buy a lottery ticket.
"It is a shame that when you come on a site like this that is set up to discuss quality control that a few individuals jump in and attempt to belittle your observations and disparage the driving skills of you or your family as an excuse for poor quality."
get used to it
in this "town", you better believe that there can't be anything wrong with your Honda. how dare you even type the words "Honda" and "problem" in the same sentence! if something is wrong, it is clearly because you don't know how to drive, or you must have broken your car somehow. KIDDING!
you have to understand how things work. if you complain, it starts to make other people question their own decisions. and it seems that a lot of people aren't mentally equipped to handle that without immediately being rude and dismissive. you have to take the good with the bad here.
you will eventually get some helpful feedback on Edmunds, just takes time sometimes. don't give up!
"It seems that MSN Auto has indicated that the transmissions in Honda Accords are problematic."
Post by Tlauro:
"Broad but true for the Automatic Tranny's in Accords of the 6th gen and now evidently 7th gen form.
Check on the various honda message boards/forums that are true enthusiast boards. Town Hall talk isn't the same.
Those were the posts that started this and the post from Jcowan added his personal experience as if to justify them. There were no complaints made, just the statement that "Honda Accord transmissions are problematic".
If someone were to come in here and say, "my transmission is giving me problems" we would all say there have been issues so take it to your dealer and have them look at it. There are several instances of that.
But when someone says "all Honda Accord brakes are crap" (sound familiar?) of course you will have a few people question that statement as we have here about the trannys.
"problems" boards.
The gloom and doom stories here are NOTHING compared to the other boards I lurked in.
Try the Audi A6 problems forum as an example!
haha.
i don't understand why it isn't fair to say all 2003 V6 Accords have tranmission problems. the government and Honda realized it - are in the process of a huge safety recall. they wouldn't recall the cars if their wasn't a problem, would they? that would be silly.
But if you read the summary of the recall, it states the cause of the problem and the remedy. All of the transmissions will not need replacement but as a precaution, they will install a oil coolant kit to those that show little to no wear. Doesn't sound like all to me.
NHTSA has the recall listed under 03 Accord.
http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/cars/problems/recalls/recallsearch.c- fm
there is a recall. per Honda. regulated by the Federal Govt. on ALL 2003 V6 Accords, and some 2004. is that what you are asking?
if ALL 2003's weren't effected, they ALL wouldn't be recalled. simple as that. Honda isn't in business to service cars if they don't have to. thats for SURE!
The are affected by the recall, but they won't necessarily have a problem from the issue.
To date, our shop has inspected a lot of these affected cars and made the retro fit.
They have found, so far ***ONE*** high mileage Odyssey that was questionable when they inspected it. We replaced the transmission at no charge to the customer.
Thanks for all the help. Because of individuals like you that take the time to put out the facts I was well prepared to talk with the Honda Rep in CA. After discussing my particular problems and service records which were all documented in the Honda data base files Honda agreed today to pay the full replacement cost of this my third tranny in my 99 Accord V-6 at 96,000 miles. Thanks to the information you and others like you provided I had the extra source data to make a valid argument. There was a problem in my first 99 tranny with a loud clunk when in reverse, yes it is true just like many others had reported on this site in 2001. Honda replaced it under warranty at 32,000 in 2001. And yes the new tranny began slipping at around 50,000 and then failed completely with the corresponding engine warning light and code at 64,000. My car had been driven in a normal manner and serviced by Honda dealers. Neither of my two Toyotas or my other Honda (civic manual) have had any problems with brakes, tranny, or fuel gauges. Yes the rest of my family in NJ and NY both own V-6 Accords and yes Honda has paid the full replacement cost for their repairs as well. Maybe because there was/is a problem. Once again if not for intelligent discussion of these legitimate problems I would have been out $3,800 as I would have never thought to ask if it could be other then just me. My fuel gauge has been off for years as well and I have never bothered to complain about that and still live with it. I did not know there was a problem with those either. I had never thought or known there was a major tranny problem either until it happened to me the second time. To those of you that do notice problems please continue to take the time to properly report, comment and read sites like this. This saved me a bunch of money personally and because of the way Honda is now handling the concern their reputation as well. Justin you were 100% right, thank you.
I have cut them and added them below to show the striking impact of your comments three years running. By the way this was when I was having the second of my three transmissions installed after it made a loud clunking noise.
This site is about Identifying and fixing problems no matter how some individuals wish to cloud the issues.
Once again my thanks to people like Justin who understand what quality and safety and customer satisfaction and this site are all about.
I have spent 27 years in aviation maintenance and it is people who fail to be open minded and listen to legitimate problems that get people killed.
Just so you do not have to go back to page one.
Much ado about nothing. by isellhondas May 22, 2001 (11:44 am)
Forget the fact (if you can) that I sell Hondas.
The "problems" mentioned here have been greatly overblown.
Any car can and will have an occasional problem. Since Hondas are so reliable, when something DOES happen it gets front page news.
They are better than ever!
First I ever heard of this was right here, in Town Hall. I'll repeat, this was very much overblown.
A supplier, unbeknownst to Honda decided to change specs on some part in the V-6 transmissions. This would cause a loud "clunk" while backing up. It did not cause total failure.
Honda was blindslided by this.And, few cars were affected.
To this day, I have NEVER heard this clunk and I've backed up literally hundreds of them. The problem cars were fixed under warranty, case closed.
If anselmo wants to think Hondas aren't as good as before, I'll respect his opinion even though I totally disagree.
As you can see, I've owned three Accords. NONE of my Hondas have experienced quality control issues even worth mentioning. That is a much better record than the vast majority of brands that have EVER been on the market.
Surely, you will find problems with anything mechanical. However, you probably won't find too many automobile brands more satisfying to their owners than Honda has been. That is well illustrated by the reliability statistics reported by ACTUAL OWNERS of about 600,000 cars a year in Consumer Reports.
As I said 29 years in aviation why do you think I only own Honda cars and Toyota trucks!
I understand what these companies have stood for all these years and support them and forums like this that help us all understand them better.
As you said four very busy days researching a $3,800 personal problem and many thanks to all of you that have taken the time over the past several years to track these issues to allow a novice like me to benefit from your knowledge and experience.
Honestly thank you to everyone for all the help.
When they see "one' problem, their first question is:
"Find out how many of the cars sold have this problem"
He doesn't worry about the "how" part of it.
Unless he has a very efficient team of Design & Production manager who can thump their chest and say that the possibility of having a defect using these design in conjunction with the mfg techniques is such and such.
The term "anecdotal" doesn't mean "wrong" or "invalid".
What anecdotal means is that it is evidence that has not been subjected to scientific method.
So really when people bicker about anecdotal evidence what they are stumbling over is the lack of any study to quantify what has been observed.
Once somebody finally figures out how many Hondas per 100 actually reported a certain problem, this tends to settle everyone down.
In addition to the "anecdotal" problem, there is the problem of the "theory of big numbers". A problem seems bigger when the number of cases which it is spread upon is small. So in these forums, you have maybe 20 people, of which 5 say they have the problem and 15 say they don't. So it seems like a lot of problems. But spread that out over one million cars and the averages plummet and the problem seems a lot smaller.
Anyway, without a scientific approach to the problem, it's hard to know what's happening.
EXAMPLE: Wall Street Journal just ran an article on Toyota's quality control problems, and they had some good facts and figures to show pros and cons of the company's strengths and weaknesses. In other words, not only were there statistics, but there were parts of Toyota doing great and parts doing less than great. So again, sweeping statements would be hard to justify.
I'm writing all this so as to encourage all of you to not be so personal in your comments. These forums are about cars not people.
thanks,
MrShiftright
Host
I can't provide a number for you, but the 1998's through the 2002's had a different transmission than the 2003's.
I was a jerk, I paid cash ($25K) for a over hyped product. Never again buddy, from now I lease and let the headaches be someone elses. My current value is about $14K, so I have experienced $11K depreciation in 4 years?
I spoke to the dealer this week about SRS, I was blown off, never again, never again.
She didn't think about it until I mentioned it to her. You see, I am 950 miles away at a jobsite and can't get home to see the car, so all I can do is go by her description.
Car was brought to a repair facility that Honda recommended since we recently moved into the area and have no idea as to good/bad body shops. The local dealer has no body shop but uses this shop for all its work.
Anyway, when the folks at the shop saw the damage, they told my wife that we have a problem and when pressed as to what the problem was, they commented that we need to talk to Honda to find out why the airbags did not deploy. In their opinion, the bags should have went off.
Now, one reason we bought the V6 was becasue of the added bags i.e. for protection since my wife drives this car 90 percent of the time.
I need some advise here on what if any avenues we can proceed on. Issues that I can't find out are at what impact speeds do the airbags deploy? Are there specific target zones i.e. strictly head on, side on, rear, or shouldn't they deploy on angled hits on the front?
Lastly, we are not feeling very safe even with having 6 airbags. Really what good are they if they don't deploy? Again, the estimated speed of impact was 25-35 from the hitting vehicle on my Accord at approx. the same speed. This calculates to around 50mph as far as I can tell and yet no airbag deployment?
I would appreciate if anyone has any advice on this airbag issue along with a idea as to how Honda intends to fix this problem if indeed it is an actual failure of the airbag system.
thanks,
john
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,