Honda Odyssey 2003 loses power

The van is a single owned vehicle, 2003 model & has 105 thousand miles.

the van loses power and does not go forward even when the accelerator is presed when we have slowed down for a turn or have come to a stop at an intersection.

This problem first occured 8 months back and we got the transmission changed at Self Check. But the problem reoccured within about 2 months and we took it back to Self Check. But since then he is not able to find the cause for it, but says that it is not the transmission. hence he is not redoing the transmission. The Timing belt has not been changed yet & the Self Check guy also things that the reason is not the timing belt. Sometimes we also hear a loud bang & then the van picks up power by itself but most of the other times it loses power & we have to put in park & then put in drive again for the van to move forward. Do you have any idea what might be causing this? Thanks a bunch.

You haven’t really given enough information to go on.

First, when you are pressing the accelerator and the van won’t go what is the engine doing? Does it rev up as you press the gas? Or you press the gas and nothing at all happens? Or what? Describe. You might also clarify this: “the van picks up power by itself” Are you saying without your foot on the gas?

What is Self Check? Presumably some kind of a car service place? Is it a dedicated transmission shop? When you say you had the transmission changed what do you mean? You had a whole new transmission put in? From where? Used? Rebuilt? Or did they rebuild yours? Or do you just mean that you had the fluid changed?

This has nothing to do with the timing belt. If your timing belt had a problem then the van wouldn’t run. However, it is not a good sign that you’ve never had the belt changed. I’d imagine that you are past the recommended interval for changing it. This might also suggest other neglected maintenance items. In the first 105K miles, fir instance, did you ever have the transmission serviced?

At this point I think that the best that anyone can say is to take the van to your best local, owner-operated transmission shop - i.e. not a national chain shop and not a general purpose mechanic. A local transmission specialty shop. Have them evaluate it.

When I press the accelerator nothing happens, it does not rev up, then I put in park & then drive to move forward. But twice we heard the bang and the vehicle picked up speed on its own. other times nothing happens. This problem occurs very intermitently - sometimes 2 to 4 times a day but sometimes never at all.

I am sorry, I got the name wrong. The place is called Sevcheck to whom we took the van to. but they don’t do transmission, so they gave the van to Transmission Specialities. They rebuilt my transmission.

The recommended time for changing the timing belt for the 2003 model is at 105K miles, so we are not late on it. The van has always been taken for regular service at the Honda dealership. Since it was taken to the dealership, I assume the transmission was serviced before. But the transmission rebuilding was not done at the honda dealership because the cost for it was more than the blue book value for the van. So the Sevcheck guy took it to Transmission specialites which is a local transmission speciality shop.

Thanks for your time & effort.

Someone has to get it onto a good scantool - preferably one that can read transmission activity - and find out what is going on with it. If you press the accelerator and nothing happens and/or the vehicle can pick up speed on its own then this is a pretty bad problem (and likely has nothing whatsoever to do with the transmission, btw).

I don’t know when Honda’s went to drive-by-wire throttle systems. But it sounds like you might have one and it isn’t working correctly. Is your check engine light on?