there was some legal action taking place over here. I don't know if anything happened. I've seen posts from people who constantly race, boosting/n20, and even grandpa drinving that have lost their tranny. Even if you drive the car a little harder I would expect it to last, after all it was American Honda's "sports car" for quite a few years. It wouldn't be so bad if it was a civic or something like that, but this car was maketed to be drove a little harder than a civic, and I would expect the tranny to last quite a few miles (more than the 75k mine lasted) without any issues. Is it going to take the death of a 97-99 SS owner to show Honda that these years have problems too, it is a horrible thing to say. This is a safety issue as well, a slipping tranny is just as bad as not having brakes.
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21,000 miles, no problems yet. Car has been to the rev limiter only twice in 15 months, so I don't think I would consider myself really abusing it (both times were accidental). Car is driven about 70% in auto, 30% in SS.
just said I needed a new tranny they are paying for @ 77500. They ordered me a new tranny and I think they are retarded. But hey its a new tranny for free
i've cursed on it, hit it, changed the knob on it, just couldn't get it to work correctly... so i got a stick.
it's worth it if you live above north carolina tho... i know...
that's a lot of money for to change a tranny... i'm sure it's worth it, but why couldn't you get a stick when you bought the car? that's my question... i just got the SS (98 lude ss) because i lived in upstate and couldn't drive a stick before... (now stick, 2001 lude)
I've had 2 tranny replacements in my old 98 SS...and by the time i got my third one...i honestly tried to break it by ragging the crap out of the SS so that i could lemon the car...but it held out...well until someone ran into my car and destroyed it.
my first lude was an ss and I bought it with 40,000k.... had to replace first time with 55,000k on it.. and then had to replace it again with75,000k on new one... they told me not to use ss as well just stay in auto... luckly I had aftermarket extended warrenty ..... I did pay a dime but it just a matter of thats rediculas.... for the name that honda carries they should not have a falirue rate of 10% of auto trannies... to me that is a recall.... as far as dealerships telling people not to use ss mode.... thats b/s ... if it was installed in the car to me that mean it passed all test that we suppose to be made on car weather some one used ss mode 100% of time or none of the time... if it was put in the car it should be made to work in car without failure for as long as the engine would last as long as you service it properly...
I think that there needs to be a recall but honda will not take blame for it because it is such an expensive recall... on top of that the do not make the lude anymore which makes recall even harder ..... I say do level 10 asap... or swap it before anymore problem happen to anyone... or just sell it for a five speed.....
and as forrest would say... "thats all I have to say about that"
You’re right, Honda had really good products in the 80’s and Japan’s economy was booming then.
My guess is that quality control and product testing took a huge toll due to Japan’s current record economic recession. Product quality does go down when you lay off workers and make the folks left working do twice the work (probably with the same pay). It’s actually counter productive because things will fall through the cracks.
Also, I wonder how many folks in Japan fell victim to our SS trannies failing, if any. I believe they have a similar setup in their version of the Honda Accord. The +/- sport shifting is on the opposite side of the gear box because they drive on the other side of the car. My question is did the quality assurance group screw the pooch when they exported the North American compliant (left hand drive) SS trannies to the US? I don’t know if something fell through the cracks or if it was a design flaw in the JDM trannies too.
BTW as most of you know, the JDM Preludes in Japan are different that our Ludes in North America. They get navigation, climate control, nicer fog lights, leather/or sport seats, self folding side mirrors (WTH, to save space?) and of course, a TYPE-S model. Things that make you go Hmmm. I guess we get the dummy down versions every place else on the planet including the brilliant SS (super-shi**y) trannies...LOL
Quote from a Turkish 'lude owner:
I don't know about Japan versions, but here in TURKEY we have European version of the 5th gen. There are only 70 cars sold here, all SS with 4WS. Though the number is very low the important thing on this subject is that HONDA SENT LETTERS TO OWNERS OF MOSTLY 97 OWNERS REGARDING THE SS TRANSMISSION AND REPLACED ALL OFF THEM WITHOUT WAITING THEM FAIL. Yes, they replaced all of the transmissions on these cars, but they did it quietly. Since there are only 70 cars to deal with, they wanted to keep it quiet and replaced all of them before they fail. But in your case, since the costs would be very high, they just waited until the units fail and still kept it quiet.
This proves that THEY WERE AWARE ABOUT THE SS PROBLEMS FROM 97-98 BUT DIDN'T WANT TO DEAL WITH REPLACING ALL OF THEM.
They will probably deny it if asked but the serial numbers on these transmissions are PROOF b/c they have different starting numbers on these units for every year and I have original Honda service manual showing these fact for sure.
If you want to contact Honda Turkey (they have a factory here building 4 door Civics) and ask about this fact (I think they will deny it) the mail address is:
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