I’ve owned a 2001 Honda Odyssey minivan for about eight years now. Recently the transmission has been kicking when you accelerate and yesterday I went up to Honesdale, PA to visit my son at camp when the check engine light turned on just inside the Pennsylvania state line. I nursed the minivan up to Honesdale and back not knowing what exactly the problem was. I took it to my mechanic this morning and he quickly checked. Turned out the code is P0740 – Torque Converter Control Solenoid. He suggested that I contact Honda and find out, based on the vehicle ID (the VIN) number as to whether it’s under a recall that was announced back in 2002 for the Odyssey minivan. I went onto Honda’s website and logged into the Owner Link and checked. To my delight, it appears that my minivan is covered.
Immediately I called Sport Honda here in Silver Spring and spoke to a service representative. He told me that the extended warranty that Honda issued under that recall (which, by the way, they never notified me about in the past seven years even though I had taken it to them several times for service) was only valid for 7 years and 9 months past the date of purchase. The original owner of the vehicle bought it in October of 2000 (I bought it from them in May of 2001) and that would make the warranty valid until June of 2008 (about the time that this problem started). I was stunned. I had thought that I was going to be able to get this problem solved under this recall warranty only to be told “sorry – your warranty expired a little over a year ago). I had no idea that my vehicle was covered under this warranty nor had I even known about this issue until just now. In fact, Honda never bothered to contact me (although I don’t know if they contacted the original owner who didn’t forward me the information). As it stands the cost of the transmission could well be around $3000 to repair.
As it now appears that I need a new mini-van I am exploring other options. Unfortunately, I cannot seem to be able to get a new minivan under the “cash for clunkers” program. But one thing’s for sure, this has certainly soured me on Honda’s business practices and it has certainly convinced me that I am not getting another Honda ever again. I’ve been happy with my Toyota Prius and I will be looking into getting another Toyota soon.
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August 10, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Doug
Our minivan did fall under this ‘ghost’ warranty. Honda doesn’t want anyone to know that they have problems just like the other car manufacturers. So I’d just bitterly complain to the local dealer, and then send a letter to the American Honda Corporation (AMC). This blog is a great first start. Honda does care about their reputation, and they may well step up to address the problem. In our case, they did replace the entire transmission.
August 10, 2009 at 5:11 pm
idubrawsky
You want the real kicker — I only have 81,000 miles on the minivan! That’s considered low in terms of miles.
August 10, 2009 at 5:36 pm
David Janus
Ido – this isn’t just Honda, apparently most (maybe all) of the auto companies are constantly doing “under the radar” types of recalls (or ghost warranties, or whatever). We had something similar happen to us about a year or so ago with our ‘02 Dodge minivan. We are fortunate to have a competent and honest mechanic who, instead of fixing the problem for a couple of grand, alerted us to the fact that Dodge had issued a recall for the particular problem, and even coordinated with a local Dodge dealer to get it fixed at no charge. According to our mechanic this stuff goes on all the time and is not limited to a single manufacturer.
Good luck.
August 10, 2009 at 9:14 pm
idubrawsky
Spoke with Honda America this afternoon. Their position is that this was a warranty extension and not a recall (interesting as the information about this problem and the resolution can be found in Honda’s Owner Link site under RECALLS) and that therefore even if I had taken it to the dealer during the “warranty extension” period the dealer would not have replaced the transmission unless it was failing.
Basically, they’re saying that there’s nothing that they can do and that it is my responsibility to get it fixed. As I told the Honda America representative on the phone at the end – “I will not be buying another Honda ever”