2006 Accord engine/tranny mounts

[greenjp]

Howdy folks,
My 2006 Accord (EX-L, 4 cylinder, stick shift) has ~142k miles and I suspect is in need of some new mounts. There's a pronounced clunking/jerking when getting on the throttle and some occasionaly "bounciness" for lack of a better word from the drivetrain.
Looking at the parts diagrams there are 3 engine mounts and 3 transmission mounts. A few questions:
- do they all typically need to be replaced or do just one or a few generally go bad?
- the OEM prices are pretty high - $100-180 apiece for the engine mounts, $25-50 for the transmission mounts. Call it $600 for all of 'em. I've seen "kits" of all 6 for ~$100, and prices more in the $30 apiece range indivdiually on Rockauto et al. Is this a "you get what you pay for" or "ridiculous OEM markup" situation?
- Any thoughts on the ease of changing them out? Youtube made the front engine mount look pretty easy and the rear one pretty tricky but doable.
Thanks!
jeff

 

[Trav]

With 142K I would seriously consider doing them all. They are all tired and the old ones will stress the new one and shorten its life, this can lead to a merry go round situation.
Bite the bullet and buy OE, that garbage sold on Rock and chain stores has no place in a car you will be like a dog chasing its tail replacing them one after the other every few months.

 

[qjohn]

Test out how far the motor moves when transmission is in drive against the brakes. Also check lower control arm bushings. At only 142k, I would only replace what is broken. Anything other than oem risks excess vibrations. The motor mount on passenger side front is easy to swap, don't know about the rest.

 

[khittner]

I just did this with my '02 Camry, but it had 264K miles on it. If you're going to do the mounts, and keep the car for awhile, take the "buy OEM" advice. I initially bought Beck-Arnley (usually reliable quality, IMHO) mounts for the Camry, and I had my usual shop install them. The car continued to vibrate at idle. My shop had no theories on what the issue was after a leak-down compression test showed the engine still 95% of its original-spec compression in each cylinder, so I took it to the local Toyota dealer for their "expertise". Their diagnosis: "You must have some internal engine wear, like on the balance shafts, that's causing that." Nah! Bit the bullet and bought OEM mounts from my favorite discount Toyota OEM supplier. Of the B-A mounts, two were made in Indonesia, and two in China. For the OEM, two were made in the U.S., and two were made in Japan. Had the new OEM mounts installed, and the car runs and idles like new. The OEMs do the NVH development needed to make their vehicles operate well; in this particular realm, the aftermarket suppliers simply don't. Mounts are something that 3-D scanning and replication are just not sufficient to produce a good end result.

 

[MaximaGuy]

OE mounts - if you choose non-OEM you will be needing to redo it.
Friend of mine and I went about changing the mounts on his E320, we went with non-OEM.
Mercedes engineering so fcked-up that they stuck one mount behind the compressor - which moronnn would do it.
We had to drain the refrigerant, remove the compressor and whola eveything went well for 6 hrs.
Lo behold we had to redo it after 10K miles, clunking.

 

[EdwardC]

I'd suggest going oem. I replaced one of the top mounts on my 07 Element with an aftermarket and it didn't fit quite right, and the design was slightly different than OEM.

I would take a look at your mounts and just replace the bad obes, unless you have to remove a good one to get at the bad one, then replace both. Worst case, you may need to replace one of the other ones later.

 

[The Critic]

On that generation Accord, the only ones that go back are the front one, side one (nearest passenger side fender) and sometimes...the one on top of the trans. All in that order. The other ones rarely go bad.

The front one is do-able without draining the cooling system if you use a 3/8" drive swivel socket for the top left mount bolt.

 

[Schmoe]

Hmmm....how do you know if they are bad with a auto trans?....never have noticed anything unusual on mine and I got about 138K on the clock.

 

[nthach]

Originally Posted By: Schmoe
Hmmm....how do you know if they are bad with a auto trans?....never have noticed anything unusual on mine and I got about 138K on the clock.

Set the parking brake(block the wheels if you want), have someone look at the engine while you rev the car in drive. If the engine moves forward more than it should(small, controlled movement is OK), the mounts are bad. Other signs are a clunk when you get into gear or abnormal vibrations at idle in any gear besides neutral, since Park applies the parking pawl but the transmission is in neutral.

 

[MaximaGuy]

As Critic mentioned the front mounts are the ones that go first and have the most impact to driving.
On a V4 it should be relatively easy to get replace in the garage. Having said that the sides are quite well supported by the shocks with minimal lateral movement vs the longitudinal movement.

There is no point replacing them ALL, there are cars with 300K on original mounts.
Depending on diving habits and kind of roads the vehicle is subjected to raises/lowers the failure.

 

[greenjp]

Thanks for the great thoughts everyone. I think I'll get OEM replacements for the front and side engine mounts and see how it does.

jeff