Honda Service Exceeded Expectations

[ccMarie]

hello, i wasn't sure where to share this story, but this might be most appropriate.

in november 2007, my mom gifted her 2002 crv to me. she was the original owner since she ordered it from the dealership in Rapid City, SD. my family lives in WY, but drive to SD to buy their hondas.

what a great gift, i love hondas and i couldn't be happier. this crv has window tint, wind deflectors (hood, windows, and sunroof), running boards, she even added burl wood accents to the interior. it is a beauty.

i must add, she followed the maintenance schedule to a tee. on one of my roadtrips in december, i was on my way south, just outside a small town called douglas..... and i'm pressing the accelerator, but feel the car kind of coasting to a stop. it slows, and this time when i press the accelerator it goes some, but then i lose power again. NO INDICATOR LIGHTS ever came on, but i pulled over to call my dad, decide what to do, etc.

dad suggests i start the car and try again, to get into the next town. this time the vehicle won't even move. i get towed into the town, i get the news. the transmission is burned up, the fluid is black, burned. (and they can work on the honda, but their price was like $1000 more than what the dealership quoted for repair). dad eventually brought a flat trailer and then towed my vehicle to the dealership in Rapid City.

OK, here's where the story gets good. this crv had 50,050 miles on it when this happened. the warranty had expired, and the car was already almost 6 yrs old. my parents had just gifted me the car less than a month prior, and had no idea there was any problem. they felt so bad, and they were even totally prepared to pay for the new transmission. well, my folks have purchased about 4 hondas from this dealership over the past 10 yrs, always get their service there, etc... so Tim, the service manager there sees the situation with the low mileage and transmission problem. he thinks this is an extremely unusual problem, for barely over 50K. he places a call to honda HQ, and in the end, instead of paying $2600 for a rebuilt honda transmission, the bill was under $500 for the labor.

the service at Rushmore honda in Rapid City was exceptional. the service manager didn't HAVE to place that call to HQ, but he did. he went beyond our expectations, and we were so grateful with this resolution.

yaaayyy!!! honda!!!

[2RedV's]

Sounds like a good result from what could have been a costly situation.

In the future, do a triple drain and fill of the trans fluid every 30,000 miles. Your transmission will appreciate it and it is so easy for an a novice mechanic to do. You don't even need to jack the vehicle up.

[Pickering]

ccMarie; your post was very informative and I believe useful in understanding our recent experience where the transmission on our 2002 CR-V with only 81,200 kilometers (50,445 miles) also failed. It was nice that Honda USA agreed to have your CR-V repaired at no expense to yourself.

Our recent transmission failure occurred immediately upon exiting the highway and making a right turn. Several loud bangs came from beneath the car, we pulled over to the side of the road, called the CAA who sent a flat bed truck which transported the CR-V to Pickering Honda (Ontario).

Just prior to the breakdown when picking up my wife from work, I noticed a very faint whirring noise coming the CR-V and thought it strange as I had not noticed it before.

Jeremy, the service manager at Pickering Honda was at the customer service counter when we arrived with our Honda. I relayed our experience to him and requested that if the transmission was found to be faulty, that he contact Honda Canada and ask them to fix our CR-V under good faith. Jeremy agreed to this request and quickly pointed out that our chance's of having such a good faith repair performed was more likely as the car had yet to reach the first scheduled 96,000 km transmission fluid change.

The transmission was found to be faulty and it's fluids were burnt. Much to our delight, within approximately 1 day, Honda Canada agreed to pay for the entire cost of the transmission repair. We are extremely pleased with this outcome and ended up paying $226 in total for 8 day cars rental and a rear differential fluid change.

In regards to the history of our 2002 CR-V; we purchased it new from Pickering Honda in December of 2001 and had them perform all scheduled maintenance. The car's warranty expired in December of 2006.

As our CR-V was of the same model year as ccMarie's, both vehicles had approximately the same millage and both cars had all scheduled maintenance performed, I believe that the six year old transmission fluid is the most probable cause of the failure.

In future if I find my self with another vehicle with low millage, I will have the transmission and differential fluids changed much earlier based on time and not millage. Needless to say I will not be waiting to hit another 96,000 km before replacing the fluid in this replacement transmission.

Thank you to Jeremy and Allen, the service manager and assistant service manager and all other staff at Pickering Honda for being so very helpful and providing fantastic customer service.

Importantly, thank you Honda Canada for paying for this repair when the warranty had expired. I had relayed my positive experience with Honda to colleagues at work and all were in agreement that it was exceptional that Honda stepped up to the plate to remedy this situation and that in all probability, our domestic car manufactures would not have authorized such a repair which entailed no expense to the customer.

[Black Pearl]

Welcome to the club and thanks for sharing a Honda did good story. It seems that we have had a rash of Honda is a rotten no good blankety blank posts here lately.

Regarding transmission fluid changes the a lot members do it at 30,000 miles (48,000 KM). Rear differential is the same although on the Gen 3 the rear differential is being called out by the Maintenance Minder at 15,000 miles (24,000 KM). Again welcome to the club and good luck with your new tranmission.

[Pickering]

Thank you for the welcome Black Pearl, this is a very informative site which I believe will be useful to refer to in future!

Yes, I plan on changing the transmission and differential fluids at a minimum of every 48,000 km and more likely will have it done more frequently at first in order to flush out debris.

The rear differential on our 2002 CR-V was a concern after seeing posts on this site regarding a TSB which stated that differential fluid should be changed at 12,000 to 15,000 miles instead of the recommended 30,000 miles and here our car had not had it done 50,000 miles!

A couple of Honda dealerships had confirmed for me that that the 2002 CR-Vs are scheduled for the rear differential fluid change at 96,000 km as are the transmissions.

The service managers at Pickering Honda had instructed the mechanic not to drain the differential fluids without one of them being present. The old differential fluids were filtered through a paper filter, no metal particles were found and the bagged filter was presented to me for inspection. Apparently the filter appearance was normal in colour.

Pickering Honda informed me that 2002 to 2006 Canada bound CR-V's had rear differentials manufactured in Japan vs the made in Mexico units shipped in CR-Vs destined for the USA.

By GEN 3, I am assuming you mean 3rd generation CR-V and not a third generation version of the rear differential?

[Black Pearl]

Yes, third generation CR-V. 2007 and 2008 models.