A few days ago my auto transmission on my 2001 CIVIC LX slipped and then minutes later completly failed. No reverse, no forward gears. I've had the car since new and it has 125k freeway miles on it. Searching Google I find that this seems to be a fairly common problem with the CIVIC and 2001. I was interested if anyone on this forum had similar problems and what to do?

When you call the dealers to ask about repair for a transmission (I've called 3) they all say the same thing. Give me your number and let me call you back. One said he needed to call Honda first to get the price as the computer did not have transmission prices. Another asked how many miles and did I get it serviced on a regular basis. This seemed odd to me as why would they ask that unless this was a common problem and the way you answered the questions was the way they treated the repair. I guess if you told them you never serviced the transmission they could blame the breakdown on failure to service the transmission was my thinking.
It's not the difficult to find others who have the same year and model with the same problem, 20k to 135k CIVIC tranmissions are failing. Searching honda's own website I can only find tranny problems with the Accord.

Any advice?

Thanks

 

uh, learn to drive (or get) a stick, and be done with flaky auto trannies?

 

I don't know if this is the case here, but a lot of times when a car manufacturer makes an unreliable part they do some "goodwill" replacements when they fail after the warranty. They don't admit there is a problem publicly, but if it's properly maintianed, lower mileage, loyal Honda customer, yada yada yada, the dealer may be able convince the manufacturer to hook you up with a replacement even though it is out of warranty.

 

Yeah, Honda replaced my distributor three times and the last one when I had over 100,000 miles on my 91 Accord. BTW they had recall on it.

 

Thanks for the advice. I already know how to drive a stick, A. This car was pretty much given to me with 1000 miles when a friends parent passed away so it was a no brainer. B. When you get older, im 48 shifting gets old and you get lazy, it's nice not having to think, plus I don't need the feel to shift for that cool feeling.

I've already contacted Honda and asked for "Goodwill repair", they requested I take the car to the local dealer for inspection. While it does have 125k, it still seems a bit low for a tranny. I've read on Google about hundreds of people who have CIVIC's also 2001 year who had tranny failure from 20k to 145k, Honda helped some, some with 100%, some with only 50% and some not at all. I'll let you all know how Honda handles this with my car.

Again thanks for ALL THE ADVICE and comments, I agree with them all....

Thanks