Honda Civic Forum - Another Shot Tranny

Ill start with the car. It is an '02 Civic EX. 58K miles. Only mods are audio system.

Over the last couple months my transmission had been getting worse and worse. There was a fast click whenever the gears were engaged. Also, it was hard to get into first gear every now and then. Today, everything came to a head when I was no longer able to shift it into fifth gear or reverse.

So I took the car down to the Honda dealer for an inspection. It cost me $43 for them to tell me what I already knew....that the transmission is shot. They gave me 2 quotes. $1997 for new transmission with a 6 month warrany, and $2267 for one with a year warrany. Both were used with 25K miles. At this point my hopes rest with American Honda.

I called American Honda's hotline today at about 4 pm. I had a brief conversation with one of their operators about my problem. Probably 3 minutes total. The only questions they asked were what my problem was, how many miles I have on the car, and about my service history. I told them I have records of my oil changes, but I have never been to a Honda dealership for any kind of service. Not even my 30K. That was the conversation in a nutshell. They never asked about and aftermarket parts. The operator left telling me she was going to send the report up ladder.

5:22 PM today - I get a call from my local Honda dealer. They are calling to inform me that Honda is going to cover the costs of repairs.

5:47 PM today - A Honda rep calls to make sure the dealer called me to inform me of the good news.

All in all...they greenlighted a $2000 repair job, out of warrany, in 2 hrs, with about 3 minutes of questions. Nothing even remotely resembling a hassle. I am extremely thankful to them and I am sorry to all those who went through hell when dealing with them. I just had to share the good news.

Also, they never had me fax anykind of maintainance documentation to them.