Hunter1254

Hi everybody, I am an 18 year old college student who recently bought my first car with my dad, it's a 2002 Acura MDX with 185,000 miles. What attracted me to buy the car was that the original owners were an old couple who had all the service maintenance done at the dealership from when it was bought brand new from the Acura dealership. Of course I questioned their claim so they pulled out all the service records to prove what they were saying and I liked everything I saw. Not only this but the price I payed was $2900 and they were asking 3200 initially. I think it's a great price considering it looked in brand new condition inside and out, with all the original keys and manuals. I also liked how clean the garage was with their brand new Lexus RX350, and their house looked more like a mansion, basically they didn't seem like the kind of people who were selling a lemon or a bad car. Now I have been driving this car only for 3 days and haven't even driven it in the highway, but omg it is luxurious. Like god damn luxurious, I was driving my dad's 2003 Ford Explorer before and comparing it to the MDX that's a year older and it looks at least 5 years newer. This was like I was worth a million bucks so it is really nice inside. In addition I didn't even know this but its 4WD which I haven't test but that is amazing. I have been completely satisfied with car overall and have no regrets. Now the reason I am writing this thread is for a few worries I have and hopefully someone can help. 1. I was only searching up problems that are common with these cars and saw the massive transmission problems they have. I am worried even though its an Acura that the transmission might fail on me soon. I thought before when I bought it that 185,000 is nothing for an Acura especially if maintained correctly, however, these seem to come with a transmission defect from the start. I would appreciate it if someone has a strong suggestion such as selling it before it fails, or if I can prevent it from happening now which is more ideal I would like to hear it. 2. Is it normal when shifting from D5 to reverse to not be as smooth as shifting from parking or reverse to D5? I assume it is normal because I only hear a shifting sound from the front when it happens and there are no signs of any transmission problems when driving at all but it still bothers me as there is slightly more retention and a harder shift than going from reverse to D5. Hearing all the transmission problems associated makes me worry lol. If you read up to here, thank you very much for reading the long story.

Skirmich

That clunk in the transmission is normal for Hondas, due to their weird design (Manual transmissions converted to Automatic aka HONDAMATICS) the shift lever for the reverse makes a huge noise when going into reverse.

As for trying to prevent transmission failure is really hard to do, As the problem relies in a fundamental flaw in design there isn´t much you can do to prevent failure. You can always do extreme preventive maintenance but its not a failsafe against transmission failures.

Midnight Mystery

You got a great deal!!! Any pics?

Ok, like he said, not much can be done to help the tranny... Just proper maintinance... Do NOT flush tranny, EVER!!! Drain and fill only, 3x3 process is perferred, but not required...

Wierd shift into reverse is normal...

Happy driving!!!