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2017 with 140k miles not shifting into overdrive gears!!

7771 Views 140 Replies 24 Participants Last post by  Bill_R, 
silkiechicken
So I've had the tranny judder issue in the past which was "fixed" with 3x DF... and recently, in the last maybe 20k or so miles, have had some hard shifting, so did another 3x DF which seemed to "fix" the issue.

Well, today, after about 220 miles of freeway driving, I pulled over to fuel up and get some snacks. Getting back onto the freeway I quickly realized that the truck would not shift into overdrive as it just sat at ~3000rpm at ~60mph and did not shift. No error messages on the display. So took the next exit, stopped, and restarted truck. Problem went away.

Dog decided she needed a potty break just 10 minutes after getting back on the road, so exited and shut down the truck for about 5 minutes. When I went to merge back onto the freeway, same issue with not shifting into OD once up to speed and thus I took the next exit and restarted the truck. Went another 30 miles or so and reached my second to last destination of the evening with no issue.

Will be plugging in the scanguage for the last 50 miles of the trip... but any ideas what might be going on? Could this be one of the pressure switches I've been reading about on here?
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zroger73
silkiechicken said:
Will be plugging in the scanguage for the last 50 miles of the trip... but any ideas what might be going on? Could this be one of the pressure switches I've been reading about on here?
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This is a strange one. I like @longboat's suggestion, but I trust that you didn't observe a "D4" instead of a "D" in the multi-information display.

The problem with the pressure switches has typically been that they become slow to respond to pressure changes. In these instances, a switch responds slowly enough to cause harsh shifts for the remainder of that drive cycle, but not long enough to set a DTC.

If there is some other problem that causes the actual gear ratio to differ from the commanded gear ratio, a DTC and warning message light/message will appear "pretty quickly".

If the torque converter clutch is not engaging, the engine RPM will be higher, but I doubt as high as 3K RPM @ 60 MPH. A code will eventually set, but it can take a bit of driving for this to happen.
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zroger73
I'm still holding out hope for a faulty pressure switch based on the transmission shifting fine in between failures. Which one? Couldn't tell ya. If you had a "hard" failure like a burnt clutch, failed piston/seal, etc., I'd expect the symptoms to become permanent and accompanied by a DTC.
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zroger73
silkiechicken said:
The service advisor and green tech didn't know what to make of the readings and said they hadn't seen the missing overdrive gears and 3rd gear before... so they went back and grabbed someone with more experience. The "old timer" who came out looked at the screen and commented that something was wrong with the transmission, not exactly sure what (solenoid, blockage, sensor), but that he was surprised that I made it to 140k miles.
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Having seen "phantom" U codes before in otherwise healthy Ridgelines, I wouldn't be too concerned about those; otherwise, I would suspect a faulty ground as the root of all of these codes and symptoms.

The most interesting code to me is P0776 which probably means a new 27700-5B7-010 valve body (unless metal shavings are found in the transmission fluid in which case the transmission is gone). Since this is an intermittent issue, I'm leaning towards a new valve body as being the solution, but don't send me a bill if I'm wrong. ;)

The next bad part is that the valve bodies are currently unavailable, so the solution may require a remanufactured transmission or a used transmission (fingers crossed it doesn't have problems).

Let's hope that "lifetime transmission warranty" works for you.

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zroger73
royicus said:
Furthermore, they stated that you have to get the vehicle serviced at an ASE shop. I suppose that's what they mean by "certified." We didn't initially buy the car from this dealer because of their advertised warranty as we suspected it wouldn't hold for us. We bought from them because they had a great price. This is a pretty bitter pill to swallow.

Options we see are:
1) Remanufactured transmission at dealer for $7700+tax
2) Getting a quote from an independent transmission shop (in progress)
3) Unethically trading it in to an unsuspecting dealer

Thoughts?
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If you choose option 1, you're guaranteed to have a functioning transmission for 3 years. It's also unlikely that you'd have two bad 6-speeds in a row and the odds are that it will last much longer than 3 years. Honda almost certainly knows why these transmissions are failing prematurely and I have a reasonably high degree of confidence that those that they rebuild addressed the cause.

I'll comment on option 2 after I know a cost and warranty.

I try to "be a good person", but I would have no problem selling the vehicle to a dealer. They'll offer the buyer an extended warranty and a buyer of a used vehicle must accept the possibility that they're buying someone else's problem. Even if you told the dealer, "hey - the transmission is having problems and that's why I'm selling it", they either won't care as long as it is still moving under its own power or they'll leverage that against you and drop the value by $10K. Either way, they certainly won't pass that information along to anyone else, so there's really no advantage in full disclosure here.

As far as denying the warranty on technicalities, that's normal and is why I never pay any attention or put any value whatsoever on such dealer warranties.
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zroger73
Honda remanufactures the 6-speed transmissions in-house in the US. I used to know the location and I've posted it on here, but I can't recall it right off hand. I believe a dealer is unlikely to use a third party remanufactured transmission - an independent shop would be more likely to do that.
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zroger73
The TCC locks up at 2-6 MPH for normal and heavy acceleration.

Per the service information:

The lock-up mechanism operates in D (during accelerating: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th gears/during decelerating: 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th gears), D4 driving mode (during accelerating: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gears/during decelerating: 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gears), and in L (during accelerating: 1st and 2nd gears/during decelerating: 2nd gear).
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Font Number


For reference, 1.3V is about 10% pedal position, 2.3V is about 40%, and 4.5V is 100%.
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zroger73
silkiechicken said:
It took nearly 3 weeks for USPS to deliver the used tranny fluid to Blackstone.
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I took UPS 7 days to deliver a charger I ordered from Tesla that should have taken only 3 days. There were no excuses or delays - it just sat in one location for what seemed to be an unnecessarily long period of time.
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zroger73
Two takeaways for me...

It's incredibly frustrating that something as simple as a clogged orifice or twisted O-ring could be resulting in thousands of transmissions being replaced at near five-figure costs to owners.

It's increasingly clear to me that there's no way to predict if or when one of these transmissions will fail - it's truly a lottery. Use Honda fluid or not. Treat it gently or drive it like you stole it. Overmaintain it or neglect it. If it's going to last, it's going to last and if it's going to fail, it's going to fail no matter what you do.

This would make me more nervous than a long-tail cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
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zroger73
I don't think it's a durability issue - I think it's a reliability issue. If it was a durability issue, I wouldn't expect to see failures in Ridgelines that never towed or survivors in Ridgelines that did tow.
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zroger73
Warranty replacements and even out of warrant replacements (unless you pay the core charge) will never be opened by customers or dealers.
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