Odyssey Transmission

Transmission went bad on our 2002 Odyssey after 120k miles. (It had started acting suspiciously at around 90k miles.) Honda USA tried to bully us over the fact that we were second owners, didn't use the dealer for all service, and had a trailer hitch that we installed ourselves without adding a transmission cooler. We had a pretty good local dealer (Gunn Honda, San Antonio), but they neglected to do anything about the car during a weeklong period that we left the vehicle with them (while we were out of town). The dealer service rep handling our case went on a honeymoon without telling us the car would just be sitting there for a week. Thanks to their embarrassment over that little oversight, they went to bat pretty hard for us with Honda USA during the following week. Honda ended up covering 60 percent. Now I have a self-installed transmission cooler to hopefully get more miles out of the replacement tranny, and I am no longer following the Honda recommended service schedule of changing transmission fluid every 45 miles. A former Honda mechanic suggested to me that the standard interval used to be 15k for fluid changes on automatics, and trannys haven't changed that much, nor has the fluid. To be safe, I'm now changing mine every 15k with Honda transmission fluid.

jlnjapan,

If you got the standard Honda rebuild, you'll be lucky to get 30,000 to 50,000 out of it even if you service every 5000 miles.  It's the same junk everyone else is getting.  Sell it.  Go American

How much did you end up spending total?  They told me I got 25% help, and I spend $3000.