We've had a few Hondas in my family so I didn't think anything of it when looking into an 02-03 TL type S as far as reliability is concerned...all of our Honda's went above 180k miles. My buddy from HS still has his with 170K miles and I never heard anything bad from it (just talked to him and recently there was a $150 electrical piece related to it go out...they've had it since new too),

Obviously there's not going to be a lot of "good transmission" threads compared to when someones tranny goes out and posts about it. But is this really that bad? I'd like to have this for a few years and would hate to drop $4,000 on a tranny for a car that costs 8K.

Thanks,

 

As long as the previous owner took care of the recall and had it replaced, it won't be an issue. Id steer clear of one that doesn't have some kind of paperwork documenting it though.

 

Appreciate it, I think I'm going to cross shop it with a Lexus IS300 if my transmission fears become to big. I'll only have this car for a couple years so having the idea of a major repair in that time doesn't sit well.

Thanks for the input, i've seen a couple on Autotrader that have mentioned new trannys

 

The v6 trans sucked since they rolled them out back in the 90s.

with grandma tier driving, and doing the proper 1/4+ throttle while hill climbing.

changing the filter every 20-50k despite honda's assurances that it isn't a serviceable part

and changing the trans fluid 20kish (3 qts) or 50k+ (all 7)

and if anyone thought to install a trans filter

then yeah it'l last 500k along with the engine. If the filter is never changed or you even think about doing a burn out, then it'l crap out.