I am the original owner of an '01 Honda Civic EX. It's got 87k and has had all of the recommended regular maintenance. One morning I was driving to the office and felt some slipping between gears. I waited until that evening, told my husband, and we took the car to run an errand so that I could how my husband what the car was doing. It died on that drive. ONE day the car acted up before dying. No engine lights, nothing. I have called Honda and filed complaints, they have nothing to say or do on this matter. I was considering a new Element this fall, but it looks like I WON'T be purchasing another Honda.

In June of 2008, both of my headlights would not come on. I figured they were both burned out, so I went to Kragen Auto to get replacement bulbs. After changing them and thinking the problem was fixed, I tried turning them on. They would not come on. I took my 2001 Honda to my certified auto mechanic (C&J Foreign Auto Repair) who only works on Acura's and Honda's. He pulled up some recall info regarding the headlights and recommended that I go to the Honda dealership which is in town and only 5 minutes away. After arriving at the dealership, I explained the problem and they were able to find the recall on the Honda recall website. As I was looking on the recall info for 2001 Honda Civic's, I saw one that discussed the transmission and the jerking of the car. I explained to the service advisor that my car was experiencing that some jerky movement when accelerating. Their mechanic test drove the car and was able to duplicate the problem. They said my car was covered under the 7year/100k mile warranty and they would fix the problems.

I picked up my car the next day and the service advisor said the recall problems were fixed. The next morning I drove to work and at 65 miles per hour noticed the jerky movement of the car still existed. When I made it to work, I called the dealership and spoke to the service advisor that assisted me previously. He said to bring the car in the next day and they would take a look at it. On my way home I was headed east bound on the San Mateo Bridge and noticed the "check engine" light came on and the green led started flashing around the "D" (drive) on the dashboard. Shortly after that, I noticed that when I was accelerating, the RPM's were going extremely high and my car was not moving. Luckily, I was able to get off at the next exit. I was not able to drive home and called AAA to tow my car to the dealership for servicing the next day.

The mechanic was able to duplicate my problem. I am going to list everything they did according to the invoice.

CAUSE: Found fault codes P1873 CVT pulley pressure control valve, P1882 reverse inhibitor system, P1890 Sheft control malfunctions present.

99 Add start clutch burnishing procedures & starts clutch replacement OP CODE#218511C 1 27000-PLY-020 VALVE BODY ASSY 3 22771-PW4-000 PIPE (50) 1 25420-PLY-003 STRAINER ASSY (ATF) 1 21814-P4V-000 GASKET, OIL PAN 4 08200-9006 FLUID (CVT-1) 1 90471-PX4-000 WASHER, DRAIN (18mm)

My wife and I helped our daughter purchase a Honda for many of the same reasons as other who post here. Thinking this was a wise choice. On the 10th of February the transmission failed completely, by shear luck she was returning from downtown with mere yards to her destination. I towed the car home and made a couple of calls to the local repair shop. They offered "free towing" with repair. I let them tow the car into the shop for diagnosis. I received a phone call from the repair shop stating that the torque converter had failed and the debris from the converter went into the filter and and valve body. For a the handsome sum of $2,700 dollars plus tax the repairs could be carried out. I called my wife at work to deliver the news. She like I could not even digest this information much less approve it. I drove to the shop where the car was and asked to see the estimate for repairs. The converter alone was $380. dollars for a rebuilt not new of course. Other internal parts totaled more than $500 dollars. Fluid was $ 160 dollars it was not even Honda brand fluid. They even had a charge for flushing the oil cooler. I felt like I was being charged "La carte" for everything. I made some calls to other shops and found out much needed info on Honda transmissions and what some shops will try. I have been a mechanic since 1977 and the only reason we chose to let a shop do the work instead of me doing the work was the time frame. After a near physical fight with the repair shop I convinced them to reassemble and install the transmission back into the automobile as I had other plans which did not include allowing them to rebuild the transmission.

Honda has designed this transmission so that the only way to change the filter as by removing the transmission from the car and opening the case. They claim that you only need to change the fluid per the owners manual of course by the Honda dealer and that the filter only needs to be replaced only during an overhaul and based on what I'm reading in the complaints appears to be regular. Throughout my career I have received training and word of mouth by the old timers that a transmission, engine or anything that uses a filter to remove dirt and unwanted particles from oil or fluid that can not be changed when the oil is changed is just wrong. Pumping new oil through a dirty filter just does nothing good. As for the converter I have no information as to why they fail. My guess is that Friday was the deadline for the converter design which the last day of work before a holiday weekend.. It is truly sad to see Honda not own up to the issue and make it right with the consumer. I wonder what else they are getting away with?

At this point we decided to purchase a used transmission and converter with a warranty for $1000.00 dollars and the fliud from a Honda dealer was only $72.00 plus tax and I would remove and replace the transmission my self. the whole job took about 8 hours to carryout the work which included flushing the oil cooler. Be in mind that I did not have a nice garage or lift to do this work. I did this work outside and used a sheet of plywood to work on. . By the way, when I removed the transmission I realized that the transmission has been out before, I wonder what number that one was. Honda does offer a factory reman transmission for about $2000.00 dollars and if you purchase Honda fluid they will offer a 3 year warranty add about 6 hours labor @ $100.00 dollars per hour plus shop fees and tax and pesto $2700.00 the magic number appears.

Well to sum up everything it appears that the 2001 civic was a bad purchase and the in the future Honda will not be on the list of autos to look at. Additionally I will being doing more research before we choose a repair shop for something like a transmission repair.

This has been a painful lesson about autos and repair shops we will not forget. I truly hope other people find this information and it helps them make a better choice in brand of auto to purchase and to ask questions when dealing with repair shop.

My Honda Civic only had 72,000 miles & the transmission went. I spoke with Honda headquarters & they said there was nothing they could do. Also when I spoke with Honda they were not aware of any issues with the transmission. I did mention all the complaints reported on this website. The Honda dealer wanted $2500 to fix it. I always maintained the car & I had just spent $1100 on new timing belt, battery, transmission fluid change, etc. I have always had good luck with Honda, but I feel they are not recognizing this problem so I decided to buy a new Toyota.

So today I was heading out to pick my sister up from school since she got sick, and the transmission in my 01 Civic just died on me. I have been noticing that it was having trouble shifting the past couple days and if it still did it today then I would look into repairs. Well when I went to back it out of the garage it took about 10 seconds of revving to get any reverse motion. I was able to get some pretty good speed after a lot of revving to drive through my neighborhood. Once I got to where my neighborhood exits out onto a 50 MPH road, I sat at the stop sign and my car never moved from there, even after several minutes of revving both in drive and in reverse to try to back up to my house and use another car. So I ended up having to run back to my house in the snow and use our good ol' '96 Windstar. Luckily my aunt has AAA so she was able to get my car towed to the local dealership for free and I'm in the process of seeing if I can get a goodwill transmission put in. This would really help because my family just payed $3,500 to replace the transmission in my mom's 2000 Acura TL (another Honda transmission.)

One of the previous posts explain almost exactly what happened to my car:

"The car began to make a whining noise on cold mornings which progressively got worse. After 7 to 10 days of noticing the noise, the transmission began to slip while accelerating and then yesterday it completely failed."

My car just died yesterday. I'm a student and now I can't go to school unless someone picks me up. With the almost 300 posts that are on here, I don't understand why Honda doesn't do something about it. I almost read all the posts here to see if there might be some cheaper solution to this problem but unfortunately there isn't. I hate Honda so much that I'm contemplating junking this car and buying a non-Honda used car.

I think a previous poster is trying to form a class action lawsuit against Honda. He provided an email address: HondaComplaints@gmail.com. Let him know if you're interested.

So this is the 3rd Honda I have owned. I like Honda because they are dependable and hold resale value. They are truly a great car. So when my wife needed a car to get back and forth to work and school and take the kids around I went with a 4 door Honda Civic because it was great on gas, reliable (or so I thought) had a great resale value if I ever had to sell it or wanted to upgrade, and is easy to maintain for the most part. I bought the car used with 50K miles on it from a Honda dealership, certified used program, had the extended warranty, and did transmission service twice while having it. When that day came when my wife called me frantically saying the car wont go, its just revving, I thought now way it could be the transmission. Maybe something with the ECU, something simple. This was not the case. When I finally paid to have it towed to Honda they gave me the grave news. The transmission was gone. I kind of already knew this having reset the ECU but still had fingers crossed. My car was just outside the extended 100,000 mile warranty I had purchased for $1100 but never used. I just finished closing on my house and did not have the money to front for a transmission at the time. At the same time my car is paid off and did not want to buy another. I wanted my car. SO I begged, borrowed, and well didn't steal although I thought about it. At this point I wanted to drive my car through the window of the Honda dealership like the old lady on the discount tire commercial throws the tire through the window. Only problem is my car wouldn't go. So I come up with the $3800. Get the thing fixed, after 6 months I finally paid off the people I owed. Luckily no broken bones. Then my sister in law who purchased a 2002 civic on my referall calls me out of the blue. Same thing, shes on her way home and her transmission is slipping big time. She purchased her car brand spanking new at the same dealership. It now has 95K miles on it. What the F?! How in the world can a Honda not get 100K miles. I thought only domestic cars from the 80's had this problem....not a Honda. I would love to recoup some of my $3800 in a class action lawsuit. My sister in law referred me to this site after what happened to her. If only I had known sooner. $3800 sooner Oh and when I got it back I noticed they added a transmission cooler which was not there before. Maybe now it will last a little longer. I once had an accord that I bought used for $3800. My wife drove it through water, got water in the tranny, drove it over 100 miles that way before I found out. I flushed the transmission, and got another year out of it before I sold it for $3200. Car still shifted fine and it had 160,000 miles on it.

Honda Civic 2001 with 43000 miles. the transmission just quit on it. there was a haina sound coming out when it the engin is one. The drive will not engage at all. It has revers but will go about 3 miles per hour. I called the dealer "Scott Robinson Honda in Torrance" and the service rep told me that it was not covered and that they will only cover it if it is within 36000 miles. Basically and in short, I was SOL. or I will have to pay 2500 to 3000$ to get it fixed. I called Aamco shop, they towed it in and the mechanic called me and explained that the transmission was shot and that it has to be rebuilt. He explained that is a common problem with the Honda Cvics, Prelude and Odyssey. He also went on to say that it was a bad design in the 2001 Honda Civics, something about solenoids, condensers.. coils ctc. were failing and the problem is more of electric inside the transmission and that he would do the job for $2400. In addition, he said that to prevent the problem from happening again, he will add an external oil filter outside of the transmission so in the future only filter needs to be replaced. I called the Honda Corporate and logged in a complaint. Honda did not acknowledge that there is a trend with the Civics transmissions and said to find your local Honda dealer and see if they can negotiate with Corporate about a replacement or work out a deal with them.

It is very disturbing because i have another Honda Civic but 2008. I hope i will not have the same problem with it.

I hope this help.

I have a very well maintained 2001 Honda Civic with 151K miles. I have had no significant problems with it until last week. The car began to make a whining noise on cold mornings which progressively got worse. After 7 to 10 days of noticing the noise, the transmission began to slip while accelerating and then yesterday it completely failed.

Through this and other web sites I have found out that Honda has a real problem with this particular transmission and that thousands and thousands of other owners of this year model have had the same problem. I just towed the car to a local shop and they estimate 2,200 for a rebuild.

This is my 4th honda, and the first one with a major problem, but I'm still not happy. I took this car in at 70,000 miles and had the transmission serviced (fluid drain and replaced). I did this again at 125,000 miles, so this problem was really unexpected to me and is not due to a lack of maintenance or any kind of abuse. I'm planning to call Honda customer service and see if they will help with the cost. If not, this will be my last Honda. If they do help out, I will get back on here to let others know.

My daughter bought a 2001 Honda Civic from the money her deceased brother had left her. She wanted a Honda because she had always heard that they were reliable and would last. To her misfortune she has learned that Honda does not stand by their products and will not aid in repairing a vehicle that clearly has a problem. I personally own a Toyota and I can say I've never had any problem with Toyota. It's a shame that a 21 year old lady has to find out the hard way about dirty business. She is a college student and cannot afford to repair the transmission. Apparently this year model has a definite problem with the transmission, but Honda will not cover any of the repairs. The car is sitting in the driveway and cannot be driven and will probably sit for a while. I have warned all I know about this problem and have discouraged them from purchasing a Honda. This auto company has millions of dollars and they can't even back up their product. It makes me sick. All of you who read this: switch to Toyota. The service is better and they take pride in their vehicles.

My son just called from college and reported car problems with a maintenance code of PO704. In doing a search I ran across this site with all the totally depressing reports of a pattern of similar problems! Don't really know what to do---is the code sometimes just a problem indicator, or does it predict an assured disaster? I'm not sure where to go from here. For now the car is running OK, but that will probably change soon! I actually own a second 2001 Civic LX that I now fear may be headed for the same problem.

During high School my Honda was fine until I moved to higher Elevation. Now, the transmission is failing everywhere I go. I'm a working 21 year old and I don't have the kind of money to fix this serious problem. I Can't travel more than 7 miles at a time! If I drive past 7 or 8 miles the car doesn't shift and it'll run maybe 5 mph. The car loses power and doesn't shift at all. When i pull over to the side, i have this awful smell of burnt rubber. I have to rest it at least for an Hour till I can travel normally for another 5 miles. EVERYWHERE I GO I HAVE TO CALCULATE THE TIME, CALCULATE THE DISTANCE, CALCULATE TRAFFIC. Everyday it's the same thing. People all ready know it's me on the side of the road because of this car problem... I just want to get rid of this car and go with something better.

THEY SHOULD'VE WARNED US ABOUT THE HONDA CIVIC 2001 MODELS.

I never knew this was such a problem. But I feel so dumb for buying this piece of sh*t. I take care of my car, I mean I baby this car. But when I was at around 125k miles the transmission decided to take a sh*t on me. The sad thing was it happened with no warning. The other thing was I attempting to deliver pizza (my job) at the time. I had to be towed by my boss back to the store. Now about 2 months later the TCC system is failing, and I have no clue what that means. Funny thing neither does Autozone nor the internet. So I'm asking myself how much more money am I going to have to dump into this car. Now that I look at it I wish I still had my 92 Ford Taurus SHO. That car was the best car I've ever owned.

I tell you now for the people who read all of our complaints stay away from Honda, or at least do your homework and I mean you better dig and find out everything with the car you want to buy because I was yet another victim to the Honda Civic dilemma. Should have kept the 91 Accord w/ 235,000 plus miles on it and just fixed it up (I still had the original clutch!!). Can't believe I was taken and I thought I looked into this (but then again it's a Honda, right---NOT!). I first noticed a slight shifting noise and took it right in because it was still under my meager warranty, but the dealer said they couldn't hear anything and I even went with the driver. The noise didn't change, but the day we went fishing up to Estes Park, we never made it much past the Damn Store. Thought at first I lost a belt, but nope, it was the transmission. Got the new torque converter and filter put in and runs great, but man, was it worth the $2300 I spent when I still owe over six grand on it? STAY AWAY FROM THIS CAR!!

Faced with a decision to fix or take what we can get as a trade-in,we found this site while looking for approx repair cost. It make us SICK to see Blue Book on an otherwise "good" condition vehicle essentially wiped-out by a transmission problem that Honda knows about and chosen not to recall! In spite of others' horror stories about trying to get Honda to stand behind their product with no success, we will contact the company. As loyal Honda/Acura owners ...our respect for the company and its products is severely damaged.