Kelly's Automatic Transmission

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rebuilt my transmission, timely job well done fast fair and good job, stayed to the quote, and time line

dealer could not identify the issue, ended up being a solenoid pack,

It is unusual for me to say anything negative about a business that has wonderful customer service. Everything about the customer interaction at Kelly's was very positive. Unfortunately, in my case, their service capability fell far short of my expectations. I went there because it was highly recommended as the first choice by several of my friends. I do virtually ALL my own car repairs (including A/C) because I can never find a place that I trust to work on my vehicles. Transmission work is one of the very few exceptions. That may soon change as well.



About a year and a half ago, the transmission went out on my 2003 Honda Odyssey. I took it to Kelly's to have it rebuilt. He completed the work on time and I was back on the road. In the process of removing the transmission, various underbody splash shields needed to be removed that were retained with plastic clips. They broke the majority of the clips (understandable), but failed to replace any of them, or even notify me that they were missing. As a result, one of the splash shields folded under the van and was damaged beyond repair and had to be replaced.



6 months and about 12,000 miles after this rebuild, the transmission failed again. I forget the exact warranty conditions, but it was 12 months or something like 10,000 miles, so I was technically out of warranty on mileage, but since I was well under on the time, they didn't question it at all and had me bring it right back in. They covered all costs with no complaining. I again received the van back with numerous plastic clips broken and not replaced. Also, this time, when you'd shift into reverse, the dash indicator wouldn't indicate a gear (and backup lights wouldn't come on), and the drive light would sometimes blink. When questioned about this, they claimed there was nothing they could do, as they claimed there's no shift linkage adjustment, and it was just the result of how things went back together.



I should mention that after BOTH of these rebuilds, the van has never shifted properly like it did before it failed the first time. It used to be a fairly zippy little van. Since the rebuilds, when accelerating on a downward slope to merge onto the freeway, it simply wouldn't do the proper downshift sequence, so merging became a bit dangerous depending on traffic conditions. I'll admit fault for not pushing the issue to have it fixed, so this can only really be an observation.



It's now been about a year since the second rebuild, and the transmission is again showing signs of impending failure. Kelly's is wonderful to deal with from a customer service perspective, but they appear to lack the expertise needed to work on Honda transmissions, and they fail to finish the job with the little details.



After much research, it appears these Honda transmissions fail primarily due to lack of cooling. It's a poor design that can substantially be addressed by adding an auxiliary transmission cooler and external transmission filter. This should be standard procedure with ANY of these kind of Honda transmission rebuilds. I have never towed anything with this van, but the particularly hot climate of AZ exacerbates these issues. I currently have a new transmission on order that I will be installing myself (along with a cooler and external filter) rather than try to find another shop to do the work.