SwankCLS

Cut & pasted from vwvortex:

TORRANCE, Calif., April 14 /PRNewswire/ -- American Honda Motor Co., Inc., today announced a voluntary recall of certain Honda and Acura light truck models equipped with V6 engines and five-speed automatic transmissions to inspect and repair a potential defect in the transmission.
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The recall involves approximately 600,000 light trucks manufactured in the U.S. and Canada. Affected models include certain model year 2002, 2003 and early 2004 Honda Odyssey minivans; 2003 and early 2004 Honda Pilots; and 2001 and 2002 Acura MDX sport-utility vehicles.

The situation is created by insufficient lubrication of the transmission's secondary shaft second gear that can occur under certain driving conditions. Prolonged operation under these conditions can lead to heat build-up and under certain circumstances may eventually result in chipped or broken gear teeth or breakage of the gear. In the event of a chipped or broken tooth, the owner will likely experience abnormal noise from the transmission and seek repairs. In rare instances, this condition may lead to gear breakage and possible locking of the vehicle's transmission, creating a potential safety hazard.

This more severe condition is extremely rare and affects only vehicles with high mileage. To date, the company's records indicate only ten confirmed instances in the United States and Canada of this type of transmission failure, with no injuries or accidents as a result.

Owners of affected vehicles will be contacted via mail and will be asked to take their vehicle to an authorized Honda or Acura dealer to be repaired free of charge. In most cases, the repair involves a simple gear inspection, which is accomplished without removing or disassembling the transmission, and a modification to increase the flow of transmission fluid to the affected gear. If during the inspection the service technician discovers discoloration of the gear indicating heat damage, Honda will replace the transmission assembly at no cost to the customer. Owners will be notified by mail when parts are available for their model, with notifications going first to the oldest affected units. Customer mailings will begin in May and should be completed by September.

Details regarding mailing dates and affected vehicles will be available on the Honda and Acura Web sites before the end of April. Owners will be able to access this information by registering at the "Owner Link" section of http://www.honda.com or http://www.acura.com and entering the 17-digit vehicle identification number found on the driver's side dashboard near the bottom edge of the windshield.
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Maybe Honda should just get GM to design their V6 trannys... If I do buy a Honda Accord as my next vehicle, it *will* have a manual tranny.

chef chris

HAHA!!!

Only 10 CONFIRMED incidents of failure...and they're recalling the trannies. How many CONFIRMED CLS trannies failed? 10,000???

Honda can suck it.

CLpower

they still leave us first gen 4 speed guys out of it

Scrib

What a slap in the faces of CL and TL owners.

Scrib

My TWO CL transmission failures would make up 20% of the above total.

SwankCLS

I'm sure that if the problem didn't take a "simple gear inspection" to diagnose and a small modification to fix, Honda wouldn't have done a recall. They'd chalk it up to a "higher than normal rate of failure" and do what they did to TL/CL buyers.

derelict

I think they mean there have only been 10 cases where a gear broke or tranny completely locked up. I could be wrong... but that's how I read it given the context of the previous paragraph and the phrase "type of failure".

phipark

"In most cases, the repair involves a simple gear inspection, which is accomplished without removing or disassembling the transmission, and a modification to increase the flow of transmission fluid to the affected gear."

This is why, it's "simple." This will save them money for not replacing the tranny.

Do they even know what's wrong with the CL/TL tranny's?

chikai

does anyone think this article sounds like a hoax?

I haven't looked yet, but can anyone find the original PR News source?

Nicky Pass

Why didn't they recall the CL then?

chikai

oh nevermind....I found it:

hope the link works...if not go to prnewswire.com and search for honda

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/st...2151453&EDATE=

xenon7

this just made my day. : /

Scooter

a slap in the face is right

anyone feel like contacting NY Times and referencing all of our dead tranny posts with dates and times???

Red-CL

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Slimey

The press release is listed on the top of both http://www.hondanews.com and http://www.acuranews.com

It almost sounds like the recall is for a different problem. Does the TL/CL have the same 5EAT as the Odyssey, Pilot and MDX?

gto2050

Just hink of it this way, if many of the CL and TL trannys are failing, think how many failures they must have been having with the Pilot/MDX etc for them to issue a general recall.

Infamous425

4-speed trannys arent recalled

juniorbean

iTrader: (5)

Pretty messed up they're just recalling the trucks....

mantis23

I got happy when I thought they were recalling our cars...

Then I read the article...

Now I'm mad...

Bobbydoedoe

hmm lets keep it low, before everyone in america knows about it, because of they do then i'm sure the resale value of our CL/TL will go even lower.

Chaptorial

This is nuts. When I started reading the article I thought for sure there would be something about the CL. Unbelievable.

King of the Road

Some of you may remember I started a thread a couple of weeks ago contemplating of whether to get the new TL or the G35. I am planning to get the TL this weekend because I got an offer I couldn't refuse(invoice price). I was concerned with the lousy Acura rotors and the tranny issues.

With this recall, I am starting all over again to get the best price for the G35X! Back to the internet dealers for Infinity!

Chaptorial

It's Infiniti.

Fabvsix

I have almost the last run of the O3 MDX's. Got it last August. Apparently mine has the newly desgined transmission not mentioned in this press release ! My heart was pumping ! My 2001 CL Type S has 73,000 miles WITH original transmission (I just knocked on wood).
HOW DO YOU GUYS THINK I FEEL ABOUT THIS ??????

fahoumh

the Odyssey, Pilot, and MDX all have the same 3.5L V6, no?

TypeSAddict

You know, I dunno. Does it seem to anyone else that the first batch of CLS's are unaffected (knock on wood). My car was purchased April 30, 2000. That is one of the first CLs produced, and it currently has just under 50,100 miles on the odometer with the original tranny. I've never had a slippage problem or anything else.

Fabvsix

MDX: 265 HP 3.5 L V-6
Pilot & Oddessy: 240 HP 3.2 or 3.5 L not sure V-6

provench

So those who recall the CL/TL problem description from Honda/Acura ... sure seems to me like this sounds like the same darn problem.

My wife has an '03 Odyssey and all I can say is since about 2 months in that friggin tranny slips all the time. Slighty, but getting more frequent as the miles pile up.

Honda needs to do something quick ... and let's just say I have a 6MT TSX for more than just fun ... I didn't trust their 5AT at all (probably will be fine, but the point is they are hurting their brand BADLY)

So this sucks ... my wife and I have the 100K warranty on the Ody ... but not sure that make me feel any better

provench

Odyssey is 3.5L ... 210 -> 240HP in the 2002-2004

Fabvsix

My 2001 CL Type S is the 187th car off the production line, built the second day and I've had NO issue's ....again knock on wood....
Vin is 00000187. I do think the first early runs had better parts.......most of the failures are well beyond my run date......

JRock

Clearly Honda/Acura can't build an automatic transmission for anything.

Also, I share the angry sentiment regarding their handling of this issue versus how they handled the CL/TL transmission issue. Then again maybe they simply learned their lesson from that and are acting more proactively regarding this issue.

DivinDude

this would validate the stories that I hear about honda products .. styling = bland .. engines bullet proof .. manuals = ok .. automatics = crap

Black CL-S 4-Life

This is my last Honda. It's probably the bullshit 4th economy gear causing all the problems.

Black CL-S 4-Life

Honda really is dropping the ball with this tranny issue. Soon their reputation will be no better than Ford or GM.

DivinDude

as far as I'm concerned .. and those that I talk to (or tell my story too) .. their reputation is already in the toilet .. where it belongs! And Acura service departments is insuring that it stays there!

ruski_RENAMED

Maybe the stress is higher on the trucks?

darrinb

sad to say but your right...

i heard about this on the radio today, i was shocked not to hear our cars involved

Scrib

I was thinking about this a bit more...

Seems that this recall involves a simple check by a technician to see if there is in fact a potential problem.

In the case of the CL/TL, no one can take a look under the hood, or under the car and say "Oh... You've got a transmission problem."

Even though it's a well known problem to Honda/Acura, what can they do short of recalling basically every transmission they put in these cars? Never gonna happen, unless they can find a way to diagnose the problem early, and replace those that are prone to failure.

Slimey

That's what I was alluding to above. I think this issue sounds different then what was concluded about the CL/TL 5EAT.

My recollection from the transmission forums is that the problems in the CL/TL 5EAT were with the 3rd gear clutch pack. See this thread. Maybe EricL can comment.

Scooter

bottom line there's no question things are heating up...

first you have the extended warranty on the tranny's...now the recall for the trucks...what can really set things off is crashes with fatalities due to the tranny taking a dump while on the freeway god forbid