Two years ago, I purchased this vehicle from a friend who had driven it since it was purchased new in 2003. At the time I purchased it, I took it to a Honda Dealership to make sure it was in working order. They gave me the 'ok' that it was. I purchased the car when it had 80,000 miles on the car. With the plan that this car would last me through medical school and residency. I did the typical 100k maintenance, the timing belt, water pump and all the other items that were recommended by Honda to be replaced. I spent $1600 on this service. At 110k miles I replaced the brakes, rotors, ball joints, CV boots and put on new tires. I spent $1750 on this service. Literally driving it home from that service I noticed that the car was not shifting to the next gear. I would give the car gas, but the car would just rev, and the RPM's would increase but the car would not move. I immediately called the service center, they told me to bring it in. After looking at the car they told me that it needed a new transmission. Because it was out of warranty, i would have to pay for the full cost, $4500. I contacted Honda North America and explained the situation and they said there was nothing they could do because of the age and mileage on the car. They said they would contact the service center to see if there was anything that they could do to help me. I am now awaiting a call back, but I am not hopeful it will result in any financial assistance.

Have loved my Accord from day 1. I purchased the car used, certified from a Honda dealer in 2006. I have since put over 100K miles on it, and the car has never even flinged. I regularly take care of the car. On my way to work, in rush hour traffic on I-70, the transmission just decided to die. One minute everything was perfect, the next no transmission. I had no other choice then to put on the hazzards and figure something out. I managed to turn off the car and put it back in gear. Managed to get it to the dealer, and they confirmed that the tranny was toast, and i needed a brand new one. All this for the low price of $4300.00.

My complaint is that I have had zero issues with the Honda and it's been rock solid, until this. Upon googling the error code, year , make model i stumbled upon this website which was very helpful. I hope that Honda will be able to cover at least part of the cost. I want to continue to be a Honda fan.

I had no idea that transmission failure was such a big problem with the 2003 Accord. Like most of you, I relied on the assumption that Hondas were reliable. Big mistake!!! My wife was on the freeway with our 18 month old boy, when the transmission began to fail. She managed to pull over and then slowly drive to our home. When she got home she had trouble parking because the reverse gear would not engage. I then drove the car to a repair shop close by; was told it was a common Honda transmission failure.

I called the Honda dealer the same day, was told it would cost 4,300, but that he would call Honda to see if anything could be done. He could not give me a straight answer as to what Honda might do for me. Just asked me to bring the car in for a diagnostic check. This is BULLSH@T. A transmission failure at 92,000 Miles???

From the complaints on here, I see that Honda might only be able to pay for half or pay nothing at at. I'm sure I can take it to independent shop and repair it for 2,000. So why bother with a Honda dealer??

The problem is the torque converter that burns up the transmission fluid that then ruins the transmission. So even if I replace the transmission, the torque converter will eventually destroy the new transmission!!I

Buy another Honda?..Hell NO, Never again. I was just about to change the timing belt and water pump ($800) on this car too. I am so glad that I did not buy this car new (used-$12,000). Hope Honda reconsiders a recall. They sell a new car at over $24,000 with a very good chance that the transmission might fail at 50,000 Miles.

Well, for one I am both angry and relieved. Angry about my problem and relieved to find out I am not the only one. My story is the same as everyone else. I am driving to work (I94 in Michigan). Mind you I drive over 60 miles a day. While I was on the express way while in the passing lane, my car just suddenly violently jerked. My body felt like it wanted to go through the steering wheel. I hear my engine revving and can tell that my automatic trans on my 2003 Honda Accord EX V6 is slipping and down shifting. Thankfully and surprisingly there was no one around me and I immediately get off of the expressway.

After the exit, I my car only wants to stay in first. I take side streets going 20 mph to a local transmission shop, had to leave it there as it would take them a while to get an opportunity to do a free transmission diagnosis on my car. Verdict, my transmission is dead and just like everyone else I am looking at upwards of $3000 in repair costs.

I haven't authorized the repair yet. First, I am just thankful that no one was around me. The average speed is 70+ in this area. This could have been potentially a very bad accident and thankfully I am a very confident and calm driver. I just could not understand, the car was fine the previous day. During the previous summer I had my timing belt, drive belt, and other associate maintenance items replaced including new brake pads.

I called Honda Customer Service today. Basically there is nothing that they can do, my car is out of warranty. I expected nothing less out of this overrated company. Just this past August my radio backlight went out. I was just slightly past 100k. Honda would not pay a dime and said my vehicles warranty ended in June of 2010. No goodwill repair, nothing. Thankfully the dealer paid for the core because they felt bad.

So back to this situation. I am looking at $3k plus in repair bills. I actually don't want this car repaired. After doing research, this year Honda Accord and engine type has so many problems. It's a cursed vehicle. I am not happy at all with Honda Customer service. They act like Honda can do nothing wrong. I will make another attempt tomorrow. I still owe $4200 on my car. I am thinking about biting the bullet, sell it for what I can get for it, and just get a new car. Of course it will not be another Honda. I will never buy a vehicle from this company again. They have left a very bad taste in my mouth; especially with their arrogance.

Well we bought the car from a personal owner in Texas ( we live in Arkansas). I noticed after about a week of driving it that it seemed to be shifting weird. I told my husband about it but he thought I was just being paranoid (typical woman right? Not) he rarely ever drives it because he has his truck. Well one day him and my 5 year old son decided to take it shopping and as they are driving probably 45 mph on the highway it stops accelerating and just wont go into gear! So we have to have it towed 30 miles back to our house! Then we take it to our local transmission shop and they have to get all the parts from Honda. Honda sent the wrong parts 3 times. So I was out of a car for almost 3 weeks and with two kids in school it was rough! I think Honda should step up and take responsibility!!

I was the only owner of my 2003 honda accord LX-v6 with 122,000 miles. after the clear coat of paint came off the car and i took it to MAACO for painting which cost me $1100 in 2010, and the tune up and timing belt and water pump changed in 2010 and all the scheduled maintenance I never thought that at 122,000 mile the transmission would fail on my car. this is my second accord and i was looking to buy a third but now i have serious reservations about buying another honda, a car known as reliable and for its dependability. the first dealer i took it to was Burns honda and they wanted $4000 to repair and replace the transmission. Honda of Turnersville was much more reasonable at $2900. I still think there should be some kind of inquiry into why the transmission failed in the first place and why i should have to fork out all this money with no end in sight. Help i need to talk to someone because one of the best cars on the planet is taking me to the cleaners..

My 2003 EX V6 transmission failed at around 166K miles. It won't shift in reverse and quite violent on the freeway from 2nd to 3rd but will not shift to 4th or 5th even if the engine rev at 4500 rpm. Found a transmission for $2,369.21 on AutoPartsWarehouse.com plus a core deposit of $1,100. It won't be wise to buy a used transmission. I don't know if I can trust a repair shop as they know you have no choice but repair otherwise you can't move the car. So I don't think I have many choice other than finding a mechanic to do the repair and buy myself a tranny. Any advice will be welcome.

Driving in second gear, the transmission slipped as it moved into third. The car had no history of transmission problems. In fact, just three months earlier I had the 50,000 comprehensive service done. After that, the transmission would not engage. I tried adding transmission fluid, but that did not help. I had the car towed to the local Honda dealership, who quoted me $4,125 to replace the transmission. They said it was something internal to the transmission and needed to be completely removed and replaced.

I called other shops in town, which said they have seen this problem a lot with 03 Honda Accords and quoted me $1,800 to rebuild the transmission. I called the dealership back and complained. A car with 55,000 should not be having this type of problem. The dealer then called Honda North America, which said they would split the price of the repair 50/50, at their cost. The final price was $1,733.

The dealer should have talked to Honda NA before quoting me that inflated price. They wanted to see if I would bite. My suggestion to others that have this problem is to complain and demand that they cover at least 50% of the cost. In my mind, this is still an expensive fix to something that should not have happened. Honda should cover the entire cost.

Without any previous warning, the transmission suddenly failed to shift into high gear after pulling away from a stop. The Check-Engine light came on and the gear position light starting flashing. Then, the transmission started slipping in and out of gear and I barely got it off the road into a parking lot. All of this happened within one mile at the first indication of trouble! Had the car towed to nearest Honda dealership for investigation and repair estimate. Dealer drained transmission fluid and checked for metal shavings. No more than normal metal was found in fluid. Dealer replaced a solenoid (said it caused the check engine light) replaced fluid and test drove. During the test drive the transmission suddenly down-shifted and dealer said the transmission was shot and the fix was a replacement transmission at a cost of about $3700. I told the dealer service manager that I thought Honda should foot this repair bill since the car had only just crossed 62k miles and the transmission had been serviced by the dealer (60k mile service) earlier in the year. Several days later the service manager said Honda would go in with half the cost making my part $1832 and would include a 3 year warranty. Since this was about the same price quoted to me as a rebuild in several local shops and I badly needed the car, I told the service manager to order the new transmission but to contact Honda again and try to get them to help out some more on it. Honda would not do any better than half since I ended up having to pay the $1832 to get my car back in working order.

This has been a very expensive disappointment! This Accord was my first Honda and it was bought largely on the reputation Honda has for reliability and customer service. Since this transmission now has the 3 year warranty, I'm looking at getting shed of it in about 2.9 years and the next car won't be a Honda.

After my transmission failed at 66,000 miles, my dealer quoted my a cost of nearly $4000 to replace the transmission. I told them I was aware that there was a class action law suit about this issue, and that it was the subject of a recall in 2003-2004, which they apparently did not fix, they said they would follow up with Honda to "see what could be done." A few hours later they called back to say that Honda would pay half the cost of the part, for a discount of $1300, leaving me with a cost of nearly $3,000 with tax included.

Not satisfied, I contacted Honda Customer Service, and after waiting a day and a half, was told that this should be expected with a car that was "so old." Who knew that Honda does not expect their cars to last less than 10 years and less than 70,000 miles.

Unfortunately, I will have to fix the vehicle in order to sell it. I am considering legal action against Honda as this is a know issue that they claimed to fix as part of the recall, and clearly did not fix. I will certainly NEVER buy a Honda again, and will advise people of my experience with Honda.

tcs light kept coming on....then noticing a slight slip a few times, always after being on the highway. this started pretty early on...about 50,000 mi probably. (The tcs light). took it to Honda, they said nothing wrong, no codes. At about 60,000 miles, a couple of slips...took it to Honda and had the full 60,000 mile workover. They said they change all the fluids and filters. well, while gone out of town to a wedding, the transmission bucks pretty hard a couple of times...like we had been rear ended or something...then slipping badly, then won't go into gear at all. We were in a town that had no Honda dealership....we called the one in a nearby town, and they recommended we call a local transmission guy. we were desperate...and badly needed to get back home for work. so we called a local guy with a sterling reputation, and he sent over a tow truck and had it towed to his shop, and we rented a motel room. then next day rented a car and drove home, and missed a day of work. mechanic calls us a few days later...the transmission is shot, needs a new one!! So we broke out the plastic and told him to go ahead. then had to drive all the way back (6.5 hours) rent another motel room, rent another car, and pay 3600 dollars! We told him about the 60,000 mile maintenance we'd had done, and he said they did NOT change the transmission filter, and he had doubts about the fluid, because it looked bad. He saved the parts for us, and we drove it home. We then went to the Honda dealership where we bought the car, and they seemed to be dumbfounded, and told my husband that they felt sure Honda would reimburse us for the transmission. 2 weeks later he tells us they won't, because we didn't have it fixed at a Honda dealership, and because they just said no! I loved this car, and had always loved Honda....my sister and her son both bought Honda after we did, cause they loved ours so much. So I feel awful for them and for us. No more Honda's for us! the sad thing was...we had test driven a couple of Hondas earlier, thinking about getting a new one....which of course now we won't...but the sales people called my husband on his way home from the dealership after receiving the bad news, wanting to know if he had decided about buying a new car! He said...uhhhh, no! So not only did we get screwed big time, but also was out a lot of money for car rentals, gas, time lost from work, meals, tow trucks, and motel rooms. The one thing that the mechanic told us, that I haven't seen mentioned any in these posts, is that this transmission has both an internal AND an external filter....and the external filter had NOT been changed. He thought that might have been a contributing factor. we bought this to the dealerships attention, and he pulled up the maintenance schedule, and it doesn't call for changing out that external filter. We pulled our Honda book out, and under fluids and filters, there is NO mention of that filter at all...nowhere! We told him that if we had known that the filter hadn't been changed, then we would have done it ourselves and maybe saved our transmission. But I don't think Honda even knows it exists, or something. Or maybe it wouldn't have made any difference. Either way, we bought a Honda thinking we couldn't go wrong....how wrong were we?? also at 60,000 miles, the heater on the drivers side quit working...the Honda dealer charged us for fixing it, but it's not fixed. they wanted us to continue bringing it in while they continued to "try" to fix it...charging us every time. Uhhh...no, don't think so. Funny though....the dealer guy that gave us the bad news about the reimbursement continues to ask us to bring the car in and let them fix the heater...don't think so!! So, so far, the transmission, stereo, heater, and seat heater, have all gone out...and the headlights have a flicker that's been there since 38,000 miles...but dealership can't find the problem with that either. I'm pretty furious right now, and am not finished yet. I am thankful to find this site, and will be calling the lawyer number, reporting it to appropriate place for safety reasons (forgot the name of the gvt site) and calling Honda further up the food chain. If anyone has any advice on how we could get help getting this paid for, please let me know, and if there is anywhere else I should be reporting this, please let me know that as well. thanks for letting me vent. this has been such an awful experience, and I've lost all faith in Honda.

SAME STORY TOLD BY ANOTHER SAD OWNER.

I have a 2003 V6 Honda Accord with 95,000 miles. I have always carefully maintained this car and it has never been abused, it still looks new. The car has always had some quirts with the transmission since the day I bought it in 2005. Some times it would take a second or two for it to go into gear and at other times it would surge forward about an inch when starting it. I talked with the dealer and they said it was nothing to worry about.

Today while driving on a county road at 30 mph the transmission tried to downshift while going up a small hill the engine revved up but the car slowed down (transmission slipping). I let off the gas and the transmission finally engaged and I continued on (of course we were 100 miles from home). The problem increased as we continued home. At first third gear slipped until shifting to fourth but, it was not long until it slipped in every gear every time I tried to accelerate. By the time we arrived home we had two close calls with other drivers almost rear ending us (could feel their road rage as they passed us).

When we got home I thought I would see if I could find any helpful information on the internet that might identify the problem. I was very surprised to learn that there were 1000s of others that had the same issue. How could this be kept such a secret? After all, Toyota had a bad floor mat and the whole world was notified. I have owned this car for 5 years and didn’t have a clue it was not uncommon for the transmission to fail when trying to accelerate. Mohamed with Honda America just told me there was nothing they could do, it was my problem. I considered Honda one of the most reliable and reputable auto manufactures in the world. I am shocked that they are aware they have engineered a car with a major defect and unwilling to correct their mistake.

I drive this car often. At around 119,800 the transmission began to hesitate when shifting from park to drive and began making a noise. I was on a highway road with heavy traffic when the car began to make a high pitched noise followed by loud clanks and the car came to a sudden stop in the middle of the road. After several attempts, the car started and I was able to drive it to a safe place where the car came to a stop. It had to be pushed to a nearby service garage. The diagnosis: transmission failure. It may cost anywhere between $2, 300 and 3, 500. After reading all of the automatic transmission problems with Honda Accord 2003, I am convinced that this is a manufacturing flaw in the automatic transmission. I can't afford to pay to have transmission repaired or replaced. I have lost confidence in Honda and it's responsibility to admit that this is a big problem that they should be made to fix at their expense. Definitely, a class action suit is necessary to get Honda to pay for a problem they have known about for some time and have ignored. I could have been rear ended on the highway or lost control of the car and hit or injured self or other drivers. TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE AND I URGE THE US ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE TO INVESTIGATE THE NUMEROUS COMPLAINTS ON OUR BEHALF AND DEMAND THAT HONDA BE HELD LIABLE FOR ALL COSTS TO REPAIR FAILED TRANSMISSIONS.

I was driving and the car would slip out of gear or would not go into gear. It progressively got worse really quick. At one point the car slipped out of gear while I was on the freeway. Pretty scary feeling when you cannot accelerate when you need to. I took the car to the closest Honda dealership. They said it could possibly cost $3900 when I dropped the car off. My jaw just dropped when I heard that. After they looked at it, they said I would need a full transmission replacement. That's what I assumed after researching the problem. The updated quote was $4,673 with parts and labor. Are you kidding me???? How much is my car worth???? Anyway, I will be looking to get a second and possibly third opinion.