Most of you are aware of the poor tranny design in Honda cars especially cars made in 2000-2004. I have Acura 2001 TL and tranny is about to shit the bed. I have talked to couple of tranny shops in the area and I asked them whether they replace the OEM parts failed with similar type and how it would prevent the reoccurrence again. They tell me, first, Honda have replaced the design on some of these parts and other parts they buy is aftermarket which are supposed to last longer than OEM parts, making entire tranny last longer than the original Honda made tranny. If this is a thing, this is really great as we may not have to worry about tranny anymore as long as we did fluid changes at the recommended frequency.

Does anyone have more information on this? like what is done differently? I'm looking to get another 60-70K miles on the rebuild tranny and I'm hoping that's not a wild expectation.

 

This has been debated countless times on this forum.

Some people will swear by the rebuild with aftermarket parts and a warranty, figuring that if something goes wrong during the warranty period, it will be no money out of their pocket, with maybe the exception of labor to remove and reinstall depending on what the warranty covers.

Some people will tell you that their rebuilds turned out worse than the OEM transmission.

Then, you will have all the people that did the AV6 swap and have had no issues. There really isn't a lot of talk about AV6 transmissions going bad, unless they were already in poor shape due to neglect or abuse to begin with.

At the end of the day, an AV6 swap will cost you less than a rebuild of the TL transmission and as long as you find a transmission with lower mileage, there should be plenty of life left in it.

 

First of all.. Unless those shops are AWARE that the design flaw has to do with the FREAKING Transmission Housing there are no "Aftermarket" parts to buy... The issue is because the transmission housing doesn`t have the right clearance for the 3rd gear input shaft that moves and miss-align the ATF passages and starves the clutch pack from its precious ATF Coolant.

So there are no parts that you can easily swap to make the problem go away... The issues are not with small parts or solenoids or valve job, Its the transmission housing itself.


Get the AV6 and DONT LOOK BACK. DO NOT REBUILD THAT POS AGAIN!

 

I hear you loud and clear. I have talked to like 5 transmission shops in Rochester/Syracuse NY area and none of them have heard of this swap or willing to do it. I'm not savvy enough to do this myself so how do I do it? Does anyone know of any place where I can get this done? Thanks

 

On the original tranny I have had 15 yrs, 126K miles. All I'm looking for with rebuild tranny is 5-7 yrs, 50-75K more miles.

 

I live in Rochester... You supply the tranny... I'll do the swap for you

 

The AV6 will eventually suffer the same fate, The casing is the same design just not as old as our TL ones, The aluminum is too soft. Thats what I read from an article that as soon as I find it will post here.
Lubrication is the main problem with these transmissions and the 3rd clutch pack being furthest away from the valve body makes it worst. Also the 3rd clutch pack is over worked, every time you put the trans into Drive 3rd clutch pack is applied and released quickly, from 2-3 it drags the clutches to make the engagement smooth and the same goes for 3-2 or 4-3. < That is fine as long as the Lubrication is adequate.
The early builds had and issue with the return spring design which was then updated .
The Tourque converter is another problem area, This also suffers from poor lubrication and to make matters worse the clutches are dragged until full lock up is achieved.

 

^ The AV6 has been around for a decade, yet its nowhere, remotely, near, the Failure rate our transmission have..
If the AV6 was indeed going to suffer the same fate it would have suffered many, many years ago.

The first B7WA failures started popping 3 years after its debut, In most cases the trans would not even last more than 60K, That is why the failure rate is insanely high.

 

Not at the same rate as the 2000-04 but the casing part will get out of shape with age and make the gear mesh whine.

 

Well if that happens well past 300K is all fine by me...
You make it sound for a second like the AV6 was as bad as the B7WA.

Perhaps is more appropriate to say it has another issue but an issue that wont develop until well past the engine life.
Not like the B7WA that died every now and then.

 

The problem is this is well known issue and there is a very good chance that the tranny issue may all of sudden surface while on the thruway. There are lots of people saying they got almost rear ended.

 

That issue of the 2nd gear shaft overheating and breaking, making the tranny lockup on the highway has nothing to do with our trans issues that is what the oil jet kit was for, That issue hasn't pop up in the AV6 not even ONCE in the AV6.

Our trans issues is mainly because of slipping and like I said a gazillion times, Trans wont suddenly start slipping in the highway just to set you off. Slipping happens way before you hit highway speeds like 99% of the times.

 

When my tranny went out it started shifting poorly. It stayed in gear while I was driving, but wouldn't upshift when it should. When I slowed to a stop it wouldn't engage any more and I was stuck. I think this behavior is fairly common. However I have read a ton of the complaints reported in the NTSB report regarding the TL, and many of them report the tranny downshifting to 2nd gear and locking up the wheels on the freeway. There wasn't enough info to know if these were due to the shaft breakage or not.