Here's the deal ... I overpaid to get an Arizona (I live in Indy) 2002 TL-P with 110k miles. Beautiful car, drives like a dream. I thought having 2 of these before (without any transmission issues), why not splurge on one that I'll keep til 300k miles? Of course, the dang transmission started slipping a few months after.

Yikes.

I tried calling around for an AV6. No luck. I tried calling shops that would be willing to put in an AV6. No luck. So I bit the bullet and paid more than the car is worth to fix the transmission. Stupid? Yes, probably. My family needs 2 working cars though. (On a side note, my wife's '18 Accord snowmobile drivetrain LX is an amazing car. I've got 43 mpg on regular gas and it's not horribly slow)

So now I'm in for the long haul with this car. This transmission will puke again before I can get rid of it. Have any of you had any luck finding a good AV6 and having a shop put it in? All the posts I've seen has someone doing it themselves, but I don't have the tools, time, or knowhow. I'll just keep doing my drain n fills and hope for the best. If you have any ideas or suggestions I'd be incredibly grateful! Or just share a story, whatever. Thanks!

 

I bought a JDM av6 5speed transmission from ebay at the beginning of the year and have had it in for about 10 months now no issues. I'd probably recommend checking car-part.com for places near you that might have the transmission.

I was lucky enough to be about 40 minutes out from the jdm import shop that had the transmission and they offered to put it in for a fair price. I ended up having my friend's mechanic put it in but still cool.

EDIT: Unless you know the people at the shop, most shops wont put it in or offer a warranty on their work for it because they don't know that its a reliable swap and want to avoid liability.

 

car-part for sure. You can also try lkq's website although they price higher.

If you feel that you can't do this yourself, your bigger challenge is definitely finding a shop that is willing to do it. In addition; due to the age of the car, there may be many other things that need to get replaced along the way; these too will be magnified by going through a mechanic. I'd wager to double whatever the transmission costs for labor.

 

In the People’s Republic of California it is illegal to put in an AV-6 as it violates the emissions laws, or so I was told by several SoCal shops.

Im not sure what the law is in your state, but that may be part of the problem.

 

that is BS. Not saying that you didn’t hear that, but it’s not a valid reason and I fear they said it just to get you to buy theirs or another transmission.

I was telling my smog guy how proud I was of my car and that (word for word) “I brought it back from the dead by installing a transmission from an 07 Accord in it” and he just said “cool” and went about his business.

Car passed smog.

 

I'm pretty sure there is no such a thing as a JDM AV6. Why? Because the manufacturing code for the AV6 is BAYA, this in turn means the transmission was built in the U.S. and as far as I know, there were never any BAYA transmissions shipped to Japan.

 

Yeah, I second the total BS notion.

 

^^ agree.

 

No, that's not part of it. Pretty sure a mechanic hears me wanting a transmission from a different car and internally rolls his eyes. Then just says no. Can't blame him.

 

Holy crap I never knew about car-part. Wish I had before. Thanks for the help fellas!

 

Car parts from the dead to keep the alive living.

Many others use car part for subframe & engine parts as well.

I compliment this with the app for my local pick your part yards and have been able to save thousands on parts for my car.