I have a 2008 Honda Ridgeline with ~132k miles with the biggest problem I've ever had up until this point was changing the starter (I know about timing belt but that was expected maintenance, starter was not). I normally do very little towing during a year and even then it is usually a lawn mower on a 6x12 trailer, so not more than 1500 lbs. After trailering a lawn mower to my parent's house about 25 miles away and back, the transmission was hesitant that same evening - once at McD's drive thru and once at stop light. It never slipped and jerked into the appropriate gear, just took a while to get going and with high RPMs. I describe it as trying to start off in 4th or 5th gear of a manual transmission. When I got home, I stopped at one point of our ¼ mile driveway and it wouldn't go much at all after that. Very high RPMs to move a few feet and then the A/T temp light came on for first time ever.

Towed it to dealer thinking it was just a fluid change but found out transmission cooler, which is apparently located in the radiator, leaked coolant into the transmission. Some sort of internal failure and subsequently, transmission fluid mixes with coolant and into radiator. Airport Honda in Knoxville says it will cost ~$1400 to replace radiator, hoses, and flush entire system. Honda does not recommend a high pressure flush so they run 12 qts (4 qts, 3x) through the system.

Like others, I so wanted to keep this vehicle for longer but I feel as though I am needing to sell it for a decent price after the fix before it gets worse. Very disappointed because I love the truck and had seriously thought of upgrading to the new model in the next few years.

I recently backed out of my driveway, and I thought I noticed some fluid on the driveway, but it was raining very hard at the time, and I didn't smell anything unusual. Fortunately, I only had to go about 3 miles. When I pulled into the parking lot where I work, the tachometer was revving to 5 or 6 just to allow the truck to go less than 10 miles an hour. I got the truck to a parking space where I knew a wrecker could hook it up easily and called a towing service.

My mechanic said the radiator blew and I had antifreeze in my transmission. The mechanic said they could fix it by putting on a new radiator, hoses, and flushing the transmission ($1,200 to $1,300), but he couldn't guarantee the transmission would work very long. Since the truck is close to 11 years old and has 180,000 miles on it, we opted not to repair it and are getting a 2016 Lincoln MKX. This is SO disappointing. We thought we could get a lot more miles out of our Ridgeline. It looks brand new.

We had every routine check up - made timely oil changes - did everything we were supposed to in order to make it last - but we were still victims of a very poor design. Our dealership should have been watching for this problem, and we would have changed the radiator long ago. Even our mechanic (a Ford dealership) said he had seen this before on another Ridgeline.

I am very lucky I didn't get stranded by the side of the road - or worse - in the middle of the freeway! Unfortunately, our local Honda Dealership has really gone downhill in the last couple years. When my husband called to explain the problem we had, no one would even talk to him.