Honda transmissions made in India?

[dishdude]

Originally Posted by joekingcorvette
If you want to know of a poorly made transmission it's the GM A8 that is in many vehicles. The worst are 2015 and newer. There are tons of problems with these. Why all the Honda hate?


Because the Honda transmissions are even worse? I never had a GM transmission fail (despite owning many more GMs than Hondas) but had 2 Hondas die on me. Not sure why you're bringing up GM in a Honda thread.

 

[littlehulkster]

Originally Posted by dishdude
Originally Posted by joekingcorvette
If you want to know of a poorly made transmission it's the GM A8 that is in many vehicles. The worst are 2015 and newer. There are tons of problems with these. Why all the Honda hate?


Because the Honda transmissions are even worse? I never had a GM transmission fail (despite owning many more GMs than Hondas) but had 2 Hondas die on me. Not sure why you're bringing up GM in a Honda thread.


Honda has had some issues with their transmissions in V6 cars many years ago, but those have all been long corrected, and the 4cyl cars have pretty much always been rock solid. The issue was mostly one of the V6 having more torque than the transmission could really handle, and even then if well treated they could run for a good long while.

If we're going entirely off anecdotes, both myself and my former roommate ran V6, automatic Accords from the problematic years well past 250k with no issues. Do my two anecdotes cancel yours out? If you want to look at numbers, CR hasn't had any major reports of automatic transmission issues in Hondas for a very long time, and Honda only recently fell from it's spot near the top of their rankings thanks to it's new turbocharged engines and their teething problems.

 

[hpb]

I wouldn't worry about the gearbox being built in India. Some Harley Davidsons are built in India. My Honda motorcycle was built in Thailand. It's a global economy these days.

 

[Andrew1972]

Originally Posted by gfh77665
Its amazing how far Honda quality has dropped off during the last 10 years or so. Honda built themselves up a great reputation in the past , now they presume their nameplate alone is enough. Not so. Kia, Hyundai, Ford and Chevy top the last. Honda is near the BOTTOM!

https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2018-us-initial-quality-study-iqs


Jdpower is an initial quality indicator however really not a great predictor IMHO of what will happen out of warranty. I believe the max is 3 years and its terrible to visit dealer often with niggly issues even though no charge.

I am pretty sure my 2007 Acura MDX was average when it came out riddled with teething issues of first year. I picked it up in 2011 with 80k and now at 186k has been absolute pleasure to own. The prior owner had a ton of bringing to dealer on CarFax for warranty issues, campaigns etc.

 

[y_p_w]

Originally Posted by littlehulkster
Originally Posted by dishdude
Originally Posted by joekingcorvette
If you want to know of a poorly made transmission it's the GM A8 that is in many vehicles. The worst are 2015 and newer. There are tons of problems with these. Why all the Honda hate?


Because the Honda transmissions are even worse? I never had a GM transmission fail (despite owning many more GMs than Hondas) but had 2 Hondas die on me. Not sure why you're bringing up GM in a Honda thread.


Honda has had some issues with their transmissions in V6 cars many years ago, but those have all been long corrected, and the 4cyl cars have pretty much always been rock solid. The issue was mostly one of the V6 having more torque than the transmission could really handle, and even then if well treated they could run for a good long while.

Well - the 4-speed AT in my wife's 2002 Civic LX failed after 15+ years and 85k miles. I chalk it up to bad luck. The mechanic who replaced it with a rebuilt said that it was highly unusual. I guess that's why I don't necessarily listen to anecdotes since the loudest voices tend to be the ones who had a failure and insist that it's a sign that it must be a trend.

What I do recall was that the Honda V6s with VCM from around 2007 and the next few years tended to be sludge monsters. Not sure if they took care of that with a mechanical redesign or by specifying 0W-20.

 

[littlehulkster]

Originally Posted by y_p_w
Originally Posted by littlehulkster
Originally Posted by dishdude
Originally Posted by joekingcorvette
If you want to know of a poorly made transmission it's the GM A8 that is in many vehicles. The worst are 2015 and newer. There are tons of problems with these. Why all the Honda hate?


Because the Honda transmissions are even worse? I never had a GM transmission fail (despite owning many more GMs than Hondas) but had 2 Hondas die on me. Not sure why you're bringing up GM in a Honda thread.


Honda has had some issues with their transmissions in V6 cars many years ago, but those have all been long corrected, and the 4cyl cars have pretty much always been rock solid. The issue was mostly one of the V6 having more torque than the transmission could really handle, and even then if well treated they could run for a good long while.

Well - the 4-speed AT in my wife's 2002 Civic LX failed after 15+ years and 85k miles. I chalk it up to bad luck. The mechanic who replaced it with a rebuilt said that it was highly unusual. I guess that's why I don't necessarily listen to anecdotes since the loudest voices tend to be the ones who had a failure and insist that it's a sign that it must be a trend.

What I do recall was that the Honda V6s with VCM from around 2007 and the next few years tended to be sludge monsters. Not sure if they took care of that with a mechanical redesign or by specifying 0W-20.


FWIW I've always been of the mind that sludge issues were almost always caused by either running garbage oil, running it far too long between drains, or both. It wouldn't surprise me a bit to learn that a partial reason behind the 0W-20 spec is to make sure people are using synthetic oil instead of whatever junk they get at the dollar store.

From what I've seen, people who run synthetic and actually change it have no sludge problems in their Honda or Toyota "sludge monster" engines.

 

[cb450sc]

My 2003 Civic Hybrid had a CVT in it. I purchased it at 65,000 km and found out after the buy that the transmission had been replaced at 60,000 km. I kept the car until 300,000 km and the engine did not use a drop of oil. However the CVT continued to have problems the entire time despite doing a drain and fill every year. After I sold the Hybrid I purchased a 2005 Civic with 20,000 km and have had it ever since with absolutely no issues.

 

[y_p_w]

Originally Posted by littlehulkster
FWIW I've always been of the mind that sludge issues were almost always caused by either running garbage oil, running it far too long between drains, or both. It wouldn't surprise me a bit to learn that a partial reason behind the 0W-20 spec is to make sure people are using synthetic oil instead of whatever junk they get at the dollar store.

From what I've seen, people who run synthetic and actually change it have no sludge problems in their Honda or Toyota "sludge monster" engines.

I read on one forum someone claiming that only dealer servicing (they said they used Mobil conventional) with 5W-20 still resulted in slugging even with changes before the OLM went to 0. The basic question this guy was asking was if Mobil conventional was a "premium detergent oil" as described in the owners manual.

My parents still have a 2001 Camry that was mostly an experiment in my use of multiple brands of inexpensive 5W-30. I would check the mileage on them and change it for them maybe 4000-5000 mile intervals. No sludge, but that engine was notorious.

Still - I figure using 0W-20 to denote a "special" oil that's more durable is kind of a blunt tool. I figure there are 5W-20s (i.e. Mobil 1, Pennzoil Platinum) that are equally (or maybe more) durable, but the manufacturers often don't consider them any different for service requirements. I've seen a few fixed manufacturer OCIs that halve the OCI if 5W-20 is used instead of 0W-30. Also - aren't some oil life monitors adjustable for different oil types?

 

[y_p_w]

Originally Posted by skyactiv
I would not want a Type R as my only vehicle. Great car, but the Si is better to live with.
I started out my mechanic career at a Honda dealer. Si, not SI btw.

Few people are as cool as my wife and want something new with a stick in the USA.
The Type R is like the old Prelude 4WS. Honda knew few people actually wanted to pony up the money for one so Honda only made X many.
The dealers were only allotted 1 or 2 for the model year and most dealers got more then sticker.

I got curious about it so I've tried visiting a few dealers. Also - I haven' t been able to get a test drive of an Si. It's always been too busy or too hard to pull out whichever one they have. I wouldn't even mind a used one just to get how it feels, but most don't have one. I found a dealer today that had one. The manager took me to see it, but without an appointment I would have needed to wait a while since their sales people were there with actual sales paperwork.

I also managed to find a Type R with the doors unlocked and that I could actually sit in. It was a used 2018 with less than 3000 miles on it. A salesman said that if they had a new one in the showroom there's no way it would be unlocked. But I got to look under the hood and sit in the driver seat. It felt like I was wrapped in a cocoon. Not uncomfortable, but "cockpit" would describe how I felt.

And the markup is crazy. I saw a couple that were marked up $16k in the same showroom. I have a feeling they would probably be negotiated down, but it seems like a crazy market. The used one I saw I was told was asking for more than original sticker.

 

[JHZR2]

Originally Posted by gfh77665
Originally Posted by littlehulkster

JD Power is absolute [censored], though. Besides the fact that they're basically an awards for hire business that will carefully tailor a specific category for their client to then "win", with great fanfare, their "reliability" reports have no weighting and are therefore fundamentally flawed.

JD Power would consider a loose piece of trim, squeaky brakes or infotainment bugs to be exactly the same as a car that literally exploded in your driveway. They do not differentiate between catastrophic, expensive failures and minor issues.



Got a reference for any of that?

JD Power is very well respected. Of course it cannot even begin to compare with Honda fan boys posting on the internet.



Not a fan boy, Ive been pretty harsh on Honda in the past. But we have bought two with zero issues. Oh wait, we did have a stripped torx roofrack bolt that got repaired under warranty. So I guess were contributing to the one problem per 100 cars metric too...

The chart posted lost me when not just Honda, but also Toytota was way below the average, and vehicles like RAM and Hyundai were much higher. Ive also been harsh on Toyota, but come on - Lexus is below Chevy and Ford?

I have my doubts with any of this based upon what weve seen of the industry for years. Champions can and will fall - got it, but far more on this list is dubious than Honda's placement.

 

[Silverado12]

Originally Posted by gfh77665
Originally Posted by CT8
:
OPE engines.



Agree with that. OPE and MC's.

There are better options for lawn mower engines than Honda for the price. They have their issues too.

 

[gfh77665]

Whelp, if you won't believe JD Power, or me, maybe you will take Honda's own word for it??

On the road, the Honda fleet has been dogged by recalls. More than 11 million vehicles have been recalled in the United States since 2008 due to faulty airbags. In 2013 and 2014 there were five back-to-back recalls for the Fit and Vezel hybrid vehicles due to transmission defects. Honda has lost ground in electric cars to Tesla and others.

"There's no doubt we lost our mojo - our way as an engineering company that made Honda Honda," Chief Executive Takahiro Hachigo told Reuters.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/honda-innovation/

And then there is this:

https://www.torquenews.com/1084/highly-reliable-honda-drops-consumer-reports-reliability-survey

But of course I probably don't know what I am talking about, right?

 

[JTK]

I'm not a huge fan either, but what ever you want to say about Honda vehicles, I'd say they're generally better than Nissan, FCA and "domestics" comparing similar vehicles.

 

[y_p_w]

Originally Posted by gfh77665
Whelp, if you won't believe JD Power, or me, maybe you will take Honda's own word for it??

On the road, the Honda fleet has been dogged by recalls. More than 11 million vehicles have been recalled in the United States since 2008 due to faulty airbags.

Wouldn't that be the Takata airbag recalls? That's affected a lot of companies (including the Big 3) and I don't really think that it can be pinned on Honda.

 

[gfh77665]

Originally Posted by y_p_w
Originally Posted by gfh77665
Whelp, if you won't believe JD Power, or me, maybe you will take Honda's own word for it??

On the road, the Honda fleet has been dogged by recalls. More than 11 million vehicles have been recalled in the United States since 2008 due to faulty airbags.

Wouldn't that be the Takata airbag recalls? That's affected a lot of companies (including the Big 3) and I don't really think that it can be pinned on Honda.



Here is more of the excerpt. Its all in the link I provided, BTW.

On the road, the Honda fleet has been dogged by recalls. More than 11 million vehicles have been recalled in the United States since 2008 due to faulty airbags. In 2013 and 2014 there were five back-to-back recalls for the Fit and Vezel hybrid vehicles due to transmission defects. Honda has lost ground in electric cars to Tesla and others.

 

[y_p_w]

Finally got to test drive a used 2018 Si coupe. With my kid in the back seat. They didn't seem to worried about losing value on a car with 18,000 miles already. First time I'd ever driven a 6-speed. Forgot how light Honda clutches are. It felt kind of odd with the electronic readout, even with a virtual dial for the tach. The speed displayed in the center in Arabic numerals wasn't as awkward as I thought it would be. I remember 80s digital readout with 7 segment LED digits and maybe a segmented bar. But this looked pretty

It drove pretty well. They were deep bucket seats and it was a bit louder than I was expecting from a Civic. Not a terribly noticeable turbo lag. It cornered well on 18" wheels but wasn't overly harsh. I have nothing bad to say about the transmission. It's difficult getting a feel for the shift positions in a different car but the shifter had precise throws and was easy to row through the gears.

While I have rented or borrowed cars with electronic keys, this was my first test drive of one. The sales guy just kept the key in his pocket, which I suppose is a hedge against someone just shoving him out the door and taking off.

This dealer had a new Type R in the showroom and it was unlocked. Asked about a test drive and was told no.

 

[David1]

Originally Posted by gfh77665
Its amazing how far Honda quality has dropped off during the last 10 years or so. Honda built themselves up a great reputation in the past , now they presume their nameplate alone is enough. Not so. Kia, Hyundai, Ford and Chevy top the last. Honda is near the BOTTOM!

https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2018-us-initial-quality-study-iqs


I remember back in the day when i think all Hondas had Stainless Steel Exhaust.. Eric The Car Guy Talks about it.. He would say how he worked at a Honda / Oldsmobile Dealer and how Oldsmobile had exhaust problems and they had to work very hard. However from what Eric the Car Guy said was that he was on the Honda side and when a Honda had a exhaust problem 99% of the time they just had to tighten a bolt.

Eric the Car guy has a whole video about it.

 

[gfh77665]

Originally Posted by littlehulkster

Any company that is paid by the automakers and treats confusing infotainment UI as exactly the same as catastrophic failure is one that cannot be trusted. JD Power is an advertising company, and the product they sell is JD Power.


If you want to hate on JD Power, that fine, but then how do you explain Consumer Reports?

https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/videos/lowest-rated-cars-of-2019/vi-BBTUPcP

According to CR, two of the lowest rated vehicle were Hondas. The Odyssey and the Clarity.

 

[nascarnation]

I bought a new Accord in 1982. A beautifully built car for that time. It had a 5-speed which shifted great but had a very annoying whine in 5th gear which was where I did all my driving on the interstate. Honda had no interest in fixing that problem. Last and only Honda I ever had.

 

[littlehulkster]

Originally Posted by gfh77665
Whelp, if you won't believe JD Power, or me, maybe you will take Honda's own word for it??

On the road, the Honda fleet has been dogged by recalls. More than 11 million vehicles have been recalled in the United States since 2008 due to faulty airbags. In 2013 and 2014 there were five back-to-back recalls for the Fit and Vezel hybrid vehicles due to transmission defects. Honda has lost ground in electric cars to Tesla and others.

"There's no doubt we lost our mojo - our way as an engineering company that made Honda Honda," Chief Executive Takahiro Hachigo told Reuters.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/honda-innovation/

And then there is this:

https://www.torquenews.com/1084/highly-reliable-honda-drops-consumer-reports-reliability-survey

But of course I probably don't know what I am talking about, right?


The Takata airbag fiasco is hardly Honda's fault, though. It affected a bunch of different manufacturers, be they Japanese, American or European, and all sorts of cars from economy cars to supercars.

When it comes to the transmission recalls, yes, Honda did recall 143,676 Fits for transmission issues. That's not ideal, but it's a lot better than the alternative, something done by Ford, who DIDN'T recall their faulty transmissions and ended up getting sued and eating millions in fines, while leaving tons of Focus and Fiesta owners with a ticking time bomb in their driveway. Recalls mean the manufacturer is willing to fix the problem, which is good.

When it comes to the CR reports, yeah, Honda has slipped. However, the issues are mostly infotainment and fit and finish issues with the brand new models. The Odyssey you're citing, for example, is green in every area except power equipment (yellow) and infotainment (red). The big issues, like engine and transmission, are still top rated, so the infotainment must be REALLY bad if it's dragging the car down that much. Either that or everything in the segment is very reliable, so Honda's glitchy infotainment makes it stand out. It's worth pointing out that Honda redesigned almost their entire lineup at the same time, so teething issues are being felt more. I have CR access myself, so I'll screenshot some of it when I get home.