Transman, I saw that you were on so I thought I would ask you a couple question.
I recently inherited a 2001 Honda Odyssey with 38k on it. It is driven very little, as I am a without kids and my 2 seater Ranger is my usual vehicle.
I take the van on a couple of long highway trips a year. Akron, Ohio to Englewood, Florida and Akron to Wawa, Ontario. Other than that a 1/2 to an hour drive every few weeks, just to keep things lubricated. It maybe gets 3.5k a year. I already had the tranny fluid changed once.
I have heard some pretty bad things about the trannies in these vans. Lots of “at 60k the tranny went out” kind of stuff. This vehicle was not part of the recall, but received an extended warranty from Honda. Now with the very little driving, it would take me another decade to put the 100k on it that is in the warranty, but it runs out at 8 years (end of this year), so is pretty much worthless to me.
Is there anything you think I should do with it, other than the regular maintenance? Or any horror stories I should know about. The vehicle is very nice, and I may start a family in a couple of years so it would be useful, plus I can lay 4x8 sheets of plywood in it which is a definite plus for me. But, if these really do have horrible transmissions, I will get rid of it.
While your vehicle was part of the extended warranty issue, there was such a small percentage of these vehicles which actually experienced problems. Honda just decided to extend the warranties on any “potentially affected” vehicles. I think the odds are with you that it should be ok. Just service it at 25k intervals and it should be ok.
transman
Thanks transman, that is good to hear. All of my other vehicles have either been from GM or Ford and had zippo in the options department. I jokingly call the van Kit, and tell people he gained a lot of wait after the show ended.
I guess I had been hearing from the noisy minority that had issues with the transmissions rather than what most people have experienced.
Anyone else with one of these of similar vintage? Loves/hates?