Odyssey Transmission

To whom it may concern:

A letter to Honda of America and to the president of Santa Barbara Honda:

About two weeks ago the transmission in my 2002 Honda Odyssey died at 87,000 miles. Stunned, I looked in the Internet for "honda odyssey 2002 transmission problems" and came up with over 300,000 entries including the Odyssey article in Wikipedia. There is no doubt that this is a known problem and Eddie in your service department verified it. I contacted Honda Customer service and was given Sergio 1-800-999-1009 ex.117760.

Sergio said that there was a computer that would be needed because the transmission they would be replacing the defective one with was different. He said Honda would help me with that which essentially forced me to have the problem fixed at Honda. I explained to Sergio that this wasn't fair, that Honda had helped many other people because this was a known problem.

http://www.carcomplaints.com/Honda/Odyssey/2002/transmission/transmission_failure.shtml

When it was clear I wasn't going to get anywhere I told him that the value of the car on Kelley Blue Book on trade in was around $5,600 and in large part the low trade in was due to the van's reputation. He wanted me to pay $4,100 to repair a $5,600 van. I asked if Honda would give me a deal on a new van. He said the manufacturer didn't make deals like that. When I asked Eddie he told me that sales wouldn't give me any deal. It appears no one wants to be stuck with that model. I told him that I had no choice but to agree to the repair but that I would be writing a blog article on my network. He wouldn't take the web address and was largely dismissive. This leads to the point of my letter to you.I am the owner of Cyberpueblo, a network of 762 social websites developed around Mexican towns. Currently this network receives 610,000+ visits a month. Those visits generate over 5 million page views. The mother ship is cyberpueblo.com. On the right are the states of Mexico and the pages we have in each state. We are particularly strong in Jalisco, if you scroll down you will see many pages in bold. Each of these pages in bold has at least 250 members though most have many more than that. There are pages like tizapan.com and sanmartinhidalgo.com that have over 5 thousand members each. Although these websites are based on Mexican towns, 75% of our traffic comes from the United States. Of the 75%, 50%+ comes from California. These are Mexican Americans rich enough to own a computer. I am sure I don't have to explain how into cars they are.

I have written a blog in Spanish entitled "Why I will never buy another Honda" it outlines my experience with this vehicle and with corporate Honda customer support. The way the blog works is that first it lands at Cyberpueblo (you will be able to see it from Sunday afternoon on) and then appears on all 762 pages on that network through a feed. About 20 hours later it propagates as a new blog into the pages themselves and stays there until 10 other blogs push it out of sight which in some cases will be months. Also, it is available for eternity and fully searchable on Google. All of my blogs have Facebook integration. This means that any of my 256,000 members can click a Facebook button on the blog and propagate the article to their Facebook pages which then puts it on the walls of all their friends. (Don't take my word for it, try it!) I tried to explain this to Sergio and he didn't care. I tried to get him to give me an E-mail address to send my case. He says they don't accept E-mail from the outside. Wow, wait until my readers are asked to test that. I told him this was a loss for me, it would be a loss for you, the dealer, as not only is there the blog, there is also a banner on the side of the van which is parked on Foothill that says "Unhappy Honda Owner" with fliers explaining my plight to all who would like one.

It is not that I want Honda to give me a free transmission. I did get some miles out of the old one. What I want is for Honda to treat their customers equally. There is no set formula for their decisions and obviously the consideration I got earned them the response I am giving them. Sergio asked me for proof that I had serviced the transmission. I got on the phone with Jiffy lube and they had a record of a transmission service we had which was within the 30,000 miles. I called Eddie and asked him to talk to Sergio on my behalf and give him the information and have Honda make a final offer. According to Eddie there was 0 concession from Sergio. The point I am trying to make with this blog is that Honda's unfair actions hurt dealers as well. I hope you will forward this to someone beyond Sergio for the sake of your business and your customers, many of whom were lulled into buying a Honda because of a reputation that Honda built. Clearly there has been a policy shift and Honda doesn't stand behind its commitment to quality. Even initial quality is at stake as shown by the newest Honda recall. This has been particularly hard on my wife since she has always owned Hondas and had absolute faith in the company.

Initially this was going to just be about my new feelings about the Honda Corporation but there are some new developments with your service that I would like to bring to your attention through this next paragraph.

We have brought the van for service at your dealership three times now. The first time was for brakes and when we picked it up, part of the job fell apart on the freeway and we had to bring it back. The second time was to replace a sensor. The mechanic bumped the transmission plug down there and the transmission fluid spilled all over the place. My wife had to wait around while they filled it again. This time we spent $4,180 to replace a defective transmission, get front brakes and a new battery. The car was done in the morning but I needed a ride out there and so I waited for the 2 PM shuttle. You would think that with a job of that size that one of your guys would at least wash it afterwards. I was marveling at that as I got on the freeway and then started hearing this intermittent grinding sound. I got home and without saying anything about it to my wife, we proceeded to go to the beach. It doesn't really make the noise until you hit a patch of rougher surface. "There is a grinding sound." She said. I stopped and we turned around. Today I leave Eddie a message and after not getting a call back for a couple of hours I call him again and ask him to come get it. He tells me he doesn't have someone to spare to get it and I have to drive a van with a possible brake problem back and then wait around while your team does what they should have done in the first place. So we spend a couple of hours Saturday taking it back to them. The mechanic hears the noise right away so they can't say I am making this up. On the way home it starts doing it more. My wife takes it to Ventura and it comes back really bad. Grinding and thumping. I refuse to take it them, I want them to come get it. It may be a few days!? Let me just say that I am not feeling the love.