Can anybody shed some light on why might the teeth on a differental break off? I've got a TSX with a 6 speed. Honda says it was abuse. I had the transmission inspected by an independent party and he can't find any evidence of abuse. Any Honda mechanics online?

 

Differentials and transmissions are different have the mechanic look at the differential.

Broken teeth is in many cases a sign of abuse...but not always.

 

I just had this in June on my 04 TSX w/ ~46K miles. They offered no explanation about why that would happen but did not say it was abuse on my part. They replaced my transmission under warranty (6 weeks left on it at the time!).

I don't feel that I was ever knowingly doing anything abusive. If I was, it was based on ignorance on my part. Sometimes in the winter when the car was cold it would be damn near impossible to get into second from either first or third. Though now that it's cold out again I'm finding that the new transmission is the same. I never did one of the "shifting from third to fourth at 80 mph oh no wait I guess that's second" sort of things. The whole thing baffles me. I'm glad it happened under warranty, but I still wonder what caused it and what's to keep it from happening again.

Let us know what happens. Good luck.

 

I experienced the same failure but in my case it was more than likely abuse. The stock TSX has a very bad wheel hop problem under hard acceleration wheel spin and that can cause catastrosphic transmission failure.

 

Wheel hop can definately break teeth in the transmission and the diff.

 

Difficult shifting when the transmission is cold (and I mean cold as in cold weather) is pretty common in most if not all manual transmissions I believe. That's been the case here in the Northeast with the ones I've had anyway. You may want to investigate changing to a different gear oil (synthetic for instance). I always found that double clutching when everything was cold was a great help too; it seems to be much easier on the synchros.

 

what is "wheel hopping"? is that when the front wheel is in the air (while still spinning under acceleration) and then lands while spinning?

if so, i think i have done this a couple of times...but b/c of hard acceleration, but because of moderate acceleration over a bump, making the tire squeak sound. is this bad for the tranny? i have not noticed this in my previous AT cars (this is my first MT car).

 

Yeah tahts basically what it is.

 

its bad on your tranny if you floor all the way to redline and just pop the clutch from the 1-2 shift. you have to slip the clutch b/c our heavy flywheels, wait till rpms drop a lil then fully release. I find my times are much quicker this way, my s2k has a light weight flywheel and better grip that you're supposed to pop the clutch during the 1-2 shift.

 

No not exactly, Its when you are losing traction under hard acceleration on mostly flat surfaces and the wheels hop at a rapid rate until either the throttle is released or traction is achieved.