[RacerRik]

Hi,

I just bought a 2001 Accord-V6LE so I thought I would join your forum after browsing some of the excellent posts here.

The car is very nice, but I have one concern. The automatic transmission is kind of sluggish shifting from 1st to 2nd gear when you first start driving. I plan to do a few drain and fills and hopefully that takes care of it. Does this sound like the beginning of a transmission problem or nothing to worry about?

The car needed new tires and I found a nice set of 2005 16" wheels so I bought new 16" tires and put them on with the new wheels. Is there any market for selling the 15" OEM machined 5 spoke wheels. The original wheels are very nice shape for a 14 year old car.

Here is a pic of my new (to me) Accord.

 

[chris918]

Trans is on the way out. Good looking car with the 7th gen wheels though.

 

[CSTU93]

Welcome to DA! Congrats on your Accord.

 

[RacerRik]

Trans is on the way out. Good looking car with the 7th gen wheels though.

So is there anything I can do to prevent the trans from failing or at least extend its life?

 

[rad666a]

So is there anything I can do to prevent the trans from failing or at least extend its life?

Your drain and change will help, but the failure is inevitable. It's just a fact of the 6th gen automatic transmission (V6 and i4) that they WILL fail. When, not if, especially the V6.

Look at it as an opportunity to put a 6 speed Acura (TL?) manual transmission in it :wink

 

[mr500cm]

Whats the milage? I have a low milage 02 Accord and at 42,000 I was having tranny issues. A double re-fill did the trick for me. For me it was the fluid breaking down when it got hot because of its age. Make sure you only use Honda fluids.

 

[RacerRik]

161,000 miles on mine. I also have a 2003 Odyssey with 140,000. On the Ody I do a trans drain and fill every 5000 miles when I change the engine oil. I plan to start doing that with the Accord also.

Look at it as an opportunity to put a 6 speed Acura (TL?) manual transmission in it :wink

That sounds really cool! How hard is it to do that? And how much would it cost? I might really consider that when the trans fails.

It looks like you have done this with your Accord already, so maybe you can tell me if it went smoothly and how it turned out? Got any pics of the process? Or maybe you posted the mod here?

 

[rad666a]

That sounds really cool! How hard is it to do that? And how much would it cost? I might really consider that when the trans fails.

It looks like you have done this with your Accord already, so maybe you can tell me if it went smoothly and how it turned out? Got any pics of the process? Or maybe you posted the mod here?

Sorry, mine's an F23A1 inline 4 cyl, not a J30 V6. It came with the manual tranny from the factory.

As far as the switch goes, this should help has a starting point.

 

[RacerRik]

I just changed the transmission fluid today. One drain and fill using the new DW-1 fluid. Wow - what a difference. It shifts like a new car now - I hope that lasts!

I plan to drain and fill it with DW-1 every 5000 miles with each oil change. Maybe I saved the transmissions life! The old fluid was not terrible and not great either - but there was a good 1/16" thick coating of black goo on the drain plug magnet. Is that normal for these transmissions?

 

[Yoshimori]

I just changed the transmission fluid today. One drain and fill using the new DW-1 fluid. Wow - what a difference. It shifts like a new car now - I hope that lasts!

I plan to drain and fill it with DW-1 every 5000 miles with each oil change. Maybe I saved the transmissions life! The old fluid was not terrible and not great either - but there was a good 1/16" thick coating of black goo on the drain plug magnet. Is that normal for these transmissions?

Changing the fluid more often would prolong its life but I'm not sure if it will save it. My 01 Accord has tranny fluid drained and filled every 10k miles since my dad bought it at 40k miles and the transmission is starting to shift quite roughly from 1st to 2nd or any higher gear down to 1st. This started 3k miles ago (at 159k).
My dad's 2001 Odyssey's tranny blew (that sounds wrong...) at 150k. Those cursed transmissions :crying

 

[RacerRik]

Bummer - I was hoping that frequent fluid changes would keep the transmission from having problems. Any one else change their fluid regularly, yet still ended up having the transmission fail?

 

[CDsDontBurn]

Between here and the other forum, I haven't seen / read / heard about anyone having a long living trans even with regular D&Fs