Edmunds dealer partner, Bayway Leasing, is now offering transparent lease deals via these forums. Click here to see the latest vehicles!
Options
Popular New Cars
Popular Used Sedans
Popular Used SUVs
Popular Used Pickup Trucks
Popular Used Hatchbacks
Popular Used Minivans
Popular Used Coupes
Popular Used Wagons
Comments
When I got both cars, brand new, everyone asked me how much I liked the cars. I told them the engine, suspension and steering were great, it was the transmission that always felt bad (mushy). I am vindicated by the fact that there are so many problems with these cars transmission. Honda got in over their engineering heads by bolting 1 transmission to the 4 and 6 cylinder cars. I vow never to buy a Honda product again. I won't even talk about the cd changer in the MDX crapping out. Just happened to another friend's 2010 MDX.
pghenkelman
the problem is, don't let him get away with this. Honda is covering up. Return the Car and buy something other than Honda
1) Find a long side street with max speed of 30~35 mph and a very slight uphill slope. Drive in D5.
Details:
a) The street must be long enough to allow for the vehicle to shift through gears 1-5 as you slowly accelerate from 0 to 35mph. If/when you begin hearing the sound, hold your speed steady to sustain. A longer street will give you more time to dial it in.
b) The uphill slope of the street must consistent and minimal. If the slope is too steep, the transmission will shift back down to 4th gear and you will not be able to duplicate the sound. If the slope is not steep enough, the vehicle will not experience enough loading to recreate the issue.
c) The street must be free from traffic. If you have to stop, slow down or adjust your speed, it may interfere with your ability to tune in to the conditions described above.
2) Find a street described above near your dealer and practice recreating the sound before scheduling an appointment. Then take the service tech for a drive and replicate the sound for him/her at the same location.
Details:
a) This may seem time consuming at first, however, if you let the service tech drive on any street at any speed, he may never be able to replicate the sound.
b) If you are successful replicating the sound before your appointment, then you can schedule an appointment with more confidence that you will achieve a diagnosis.
3) Eliminate as much ambient noise as possible to help isolate the problem sound.
Details:
a) Turn off radio, climate control / fan, shut windows (reduce wind noise), avoid traffic, etc...
Please read through all the posts in this thread of the forum. Also, it wouldn’t hurt to search the internet for similar year Honda Pilots and Honda Odysseys to get a feel for general customer satisfaction related to other similar Honda/Acura V6 vehicles. If you have the option to keep or return your vehicle, this information can help you make an informed decision.
The dealer is unable to duplicate, Acura suggest having a repair person ride around with me until it happens, now there's a thought!!
any suggestions from anyone?
I just bought a new 2010 MDX tech+enter in N.VA (on 03/09) and it has been in the shop since last Wed. 03/17. The dealer said it needed transmission 'sensor replacements'. They have not worked on it b/c they are awaiting the shipments from the Kentucky and California supply warehouses. I hope these sensors are all that's needed (no new transmission...no no)
As for the symptoms in our MDX, when you pressed the gas pedal there seems to be some lag-time in acceleration. We would have brought it in later for our scheduled maintenance appt. but the message came over the NavLink navigation screen system @ 465 miles. Our previous 2006 MDX acceleration response was even quicker.
After your repairs are done, change tranny oil with Mobile 1 ATF every time you change oil. It's really easy. Maybe it will help.
I have the same symptom as you mentioned. When I pressed gas pedal hard and quick release the pedal, there is a lag time and then with a sudden speed up, mostly happening in 30-50 mi/hr. Also when I make a quick brake down, there is a lag time with a shaking. Seems like the transmission gear not response smoothly with your foot control. I am going to send to dealer soon. Hope you guys can help to identify this problem. Pretty upset with my 09' MDX Sport-ent, and jusr 12k mi only.
If you are not comfortable with the dealer, find a good transmission shop that knows Honda/Acura. Or find another dealer. You know that you will pay more at Acura.
I would call around to several shops/dealers and see if anyone recognizes these sypmtoms.
Just my 2 pennies.
we've just purchased a 2005 MDX and we had the same rumbling noise. We took it back to the dealer (Acura Dealer) and they fixed it right away with no problem free of charge. They said Acura will pay for it since it's only been 3 weeks since we purchased the car. I suggest threatening the dealer with a lawsuit. Obviously, they know about the problem.
What is the deal with these units? Could it be more than just the torque converter and be in the transmission itself?
By the way, Acura should have picked up the charge 100%. They know that they have a problem torque converter. These vehicles cost enough, they should stand behind them.
Good Luck
better to get rid of the car while the 3 year warrenty I got is still good.
See EE4Life's post on 2-17-2010.
http://www.odyclub.com/forums/showthread.php?s=010ec95cea6bda77dd8b4e8695c4a184&- threadid=41047&perpage=15&highlight=&pagenumber=42
Well add me to the list of torque converter issues, and now Acura is recommending that I replace the transmission too. Here's the history, I brought it in because at around 25-30 mph I could hear a fluttering and my rpms would go up and down 200-300 rpms, no check engine or flashing vtm-4 light. So I though maybe plugs and coils, nope replaced them all and still the same problem. So I brought it into Acura. They test drove it and the only thing they could do was to disconent the feed to the torque converter and then the issue went away. So they told me at least it will cost $2250.00 for the converter, but they STRONGLY RECOMMEND to replace the whole transission for $3700.00. My mouth hit the floor..... I told him I would call him back. So next I started looking online and clicked here and saw soooo many similar issues, and that people were getting Acura to cover all or a portion of the cost, but the kicker was that they had most of their service done, but I live 1 hour away and have had 1 service repair done at Acura. But I thought "what's it going to hurt to ask them" so I called back and politly said;
"You know I've done some research and I'm finding that there are A LOT of issues with the transission on MDX's and that many people are getting help from Acura to cover the cost, can you please try to see if you can make sone calls to help out a MDX lover that just can't afford repairs like this? after I tell him that I'm not the first owner and I know they don't owe my anything but if he could do this I would really appreciate it he agreed.
45 min later and he called back and nocked it down from $3700.00 to $2000.00, now I know it's not free, but I was looking for help and they nocked off $1700.00, that I have to say is very good customer support for something that if I did nothing I would be out that money.
Long story short, just try to call the dealer and see if they will do something for you. It was really easy.........
Acura won't say what is wrong with these. The CA service center rep. told me the replacement transmission will not have the same issues. I think he lied to me, but that's because I learned a long time ago not to trust people. If I still own our '03 MDX when this next trans. fails, I'll take it into an independant repair shop that can assure and warranty that the rebuild/repair will fix the issues.
Since replacement, I'm changing fluid with every engine oil change (5,000 miles). It takes an extra 5 minutes to change the fluid and I'm using Mobil 1 ATF for multi vehicles. I'm not sure it will help.
I read in another forum, that I should try changing the rear difft'l fluid and that it may take the noise away?? any comments/ suggestions will help.
I drive about 250 miles weekly, but what really odd is this shifting problem only happens (so far) in two intersections that I commonly enter. When it occurs, I am slowly accelerating (due to congested traffic after a stop light) on level to slightly downhill surfaces.
This only seems to happen on light acceleration.
I called my Acura dealer last week and they suggested that I come in and they would have someone ride with me, but since it wasn't frequently reproducible they suggested should wait if I could. They told me that there were no diagnosis codes that a shop test would uncover.
I'm not sure what good it is to have a passenger. Nothing unusual happens that you can hear or feel when the shift is missed, other than the engine revs up because I'm still trying to accelerate.
FWIW, my MDX just turned 100k miles today. At about 80k my torque converter was replaced after I experienced frequent shuddering at 40-45 mph.
Any ideas? Could it be that there is some kind of external electrical interference (cell tower?) affecting a shift control unit?
I've owned other all wheel drive vehicles with standard transmissions that lasted longer than the automatic transmission on this 02 mdx. This issue is going to be acura's Achilles heel.
Funny that on an out of warranty repair, Acura "strongly recommended" replacing the transmission. Yet on my 2 in warranty repairs, they did not even want to change the transmission fluid.
Sounds like "quality service" from a trusted dealer. I learned 8 cars ago to cover my backside with any dealer if I was going to keep the vehicle for 100k, I got a second warranty for the difference between the miles after purchase and the 100k.
Worked one time with a 89 Camery at 45k as the dealer replaced the values, ect and I got another 80k from there.
Good luck to all and stay safe.
jensad
We bought a 2003 MDX from a local reseller with 61K miles. The warranty expired at 60K. It now has 99K
A month after we bought it, we experienced transmission slips on occasion...often when turning but sometimes just moving straight on. The car would come out of gear, rev up in RPMs, then catch with a loud bang. I took it to the local dealership here and they charged me $550 to flush the transmission and a bunch of other fluids saying that that should fix it. It didn't. They then said they just couldn't repeat it.
We've lived with it ever since. However, last week my wife said it simply wouldn't go over 5 miles an hour, yet RPMs were going up.
I came home and checked the transmission fluid. Instead of the pink I'm used to, it was chalky white. I went to the dealership, bought some fluid, came home and put it in. The car drove fine for the next 30 minutes. Parked it and saw fluid dripping out of the bottom.
I called my local dealership and asked for help. He was a bit of a jerk, saying that he couldn't help me because:
1. I didn't buy the car there.
2. I didn't use them regularly for maintenance. I change all my own oil and fluids typically, so oh well.
So I took it to the local Cottman's. They said that a heat transfer from the transmission to the radiator had breached, and that the radiator coolant and transmission fluid had become mixed. This is why it looked chalky when I checked the fluid. They said a radiator replacement and transmission flush might just fix the issue. So, I paid them $650 and they did it.
Drove ok for about a week, although it did seem to be shifting a bit rougher. Yesterday, it started slipping on my wife again after she had been waiting on my daughter at school (in gear). I drove it around today, and couldn't get it to repeat for myself *until* I stopped at a drive through. Suddenly, when moving from the first drive thru window to the next, I got the slip. It just goes up in RPMs but doesn't move forward as fast as you'd expect it to.
I called Cottman's, and they said the suspected there was still some coolant in the transmission and that I should come out for another flush. If that didn't do it, it would need a replacement transmission. $2500.
I called Aamco...the quoted $1400.
I took it to a local Honda (non-dealer) service place, and they said $4K. They said that if I went with Cottman's or Aamco, I'd just be replacing the transmission with another transmission with the same defect and that the $4K would insure I get a factory-rebuilt tranmission with the defect resolved.
I'm usure what to do, and hope you can help me.
1. Is it worth trying to call and complain again to Acura? I hate to do it, but I'm in the leadership of a company with over 5000 people, so I'd think that my word my carry some weight, but probably not. What should I do? Who should I complain to?
2. Is it really risky to go with Aamco?
3. Anything else you can tell me that would help? This thing is *sinking* me financially.
Thanks guys! I appreciate it!
I did get a new tranny from Aamco at $3500 after both the dealer and Aamco both said it was a tranny problem. Aamco offer a by far better warrenty on the new tranny. Now I have a new tranny and still have the problem. Now Aamco says it is the power control board and they can fix for additional $1200. I am going to take to the dealer for their opinion.
Anyone know what the power control board does and what are the symptoms when it goes bad?
Need help!
Went to Acura and it is the Transmission. Scanner code was P0730. Talked to service manager and Acura CS, both did not offer any assistance. Cost to repair by dealer is $4100.00
Any advice. (I still do not want to sell it)
They said that it is no longer under warranty and so I have to pay the full amount.
The car only has less than 75k miles on it. What course of action can we take since looking through the Internet postings, this seems to be a common problem with Acura and I feel that they should take responsibility for fixing the problems at their cost.
on Long Island in New York, the dealer charged me $1000. and Acura picked up the rest. My vehicle had 92,000 miles at the time. Acura knows that they make a
lousy product and want to pass along the buck. Make some noise, insist to speak
to an Acura rep. Don't accept what they are trying to do to you. These are expensive autos and they should stand behind their product. Good Luck
Nick email nickntiffany@msn.com
The dealer said the transmission has a internal failure, so it has to be replaced. They offered $4,700 for the service.
I am very disappointed with Acura. The millage of my car is only around 70,000 miles. As a luxury brand, this is intolerable.
The dealer is negotiating with Acura right now and I hope they can offer a little discount, because $4700 is totally over my budget.
But no matter what, I don't think I will ever buy another Acura.