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out of curiosity...did you get the car new and never change the fluid?or used and never change the fluid ? or you think you did all the correct maintenance?
out of curiosity...did you get the car new and never change the fluid?or used and never change the fluid ? or you think you did all the correct maintenance?
We purchased the Fit new and followed all factory maintenance including transmission fluid changes. We don't "think" we did the correct maintenance, we did the correct maintenance.
EDIT: To be clear, I've never turned a wrench or done any DIY work on this car. I rehab old Toyotas as a hobby, but that is completely different from how we treat our new cars which is generally 100% dealer service minus the odd oil/tire change. We follow all the service lists and if anything we are overaggressive with preventative maintenance to avoid this exact situation. We had multiple transmission services on schedule.
I figured I would update the thread in case someone else suddenly has no movement and is hoping it is not a catastrophic issue. Hopefully this saves some poor soul lots of time hoping that maybe it is a small problem just because everything was fine when you parked it and there are no warning lights or diagnostics. Again, my local Honda dealer was totally familiar with this failure.
The CVT belt shredded. The transmission is far and away the cleanest catastrophic failure I have ever seen. I would love to know what kind of marker Honda uses to show the housings are checked considering it looks perfect after 108k mi. I am guessing that the damage is limited because no broken parts are spinning after the belt disintegrates. I think the only reason I found teeth in multiple places was because I ran the car quite a bit trying to diagnose everything and the pump was probably running. The filter in the transmission did the job, there were several teeth in it but the membrane held. Many of the teeth looked new. However, the thin bands that make the belt feel terrible. I'm guessing there is a whole lot of work-hardening going on as the flex and flatten each revolution. I may send a fluid sample to Blackstone to see if there is anything to learn.
It seems like rebuilds on these would be super easy, and if CVTs are going to continue to get traction in the market I think we all need to have an honest conversation about how these are wear-parts that are not going to last like geared transmissions and design them in ways that belts can be replaced without substantial disassembly of the vehicle like UTVs. I will certainly never own one of these again. The car is back up and running and I have the extra transmission core (going to keep it until we get rid of the car since there is sure to be a shortage since the transmission is discontinued).
It seems like rebuilds on these would be super easy, and if CVTs are going to continue to get traction in the market I think we all need to have an honest conversation about how these are wear-parts that are not going to last like geared transmissions and design them in ways that belts can be replaced without substantial disassembly of the vehicle like UTVs.
The last time I looked at this rebuild issue several years ago nobody was in the business of doing CVT rebuilds probably because Honda and other manufacturers wouldn't supply parts for them, for whatever reason. I don't think the failure rate on CVTs is any worse than regular transmissions (with a few exceptions like the the horrific Nissan Jatco CVT garbage). Honda CVT failures are very rare. From what you've described a defective belt that was simply doomed to fail is the most likely explanation.
Now did you do those CVT oil changes at 30k or at what ever Honda says?? With the Honda CVT oil?
Other than oil and tires everything was done by the Honda dealer. You can see some of the fluid at the time of failure (~18k mi) which sure doesn't look heat or particle damaged to me.
Originally Posted by woof
The last time I looked at this rebuild issue several years ago nobody was in the business of doing CVT rebuilds probably because Honda and other manufacturers wouldn't supply parts for them, for whatever reason. I don't think the failure rate on CVTs is any worse than regular transmissions (with a few exceptions like the the horrific Nissan Jatco CVT garbage). Honda CVT failures are very rare. From what you've described a defective belt that was simply doomed to fail is the most likely explanation.
I imagine the rebuild with the current design would be mildly complicated making sure all the particles are out of the housing (worth noting there are some magnets in the housing which had no particles stuck when I disassembled), but there is nothing about it that looks technically hard and there are some complete disassembly videos on YouTube which are interesting to watch. Honda offered us $750 for the car as a buyback. I am guessing either $750 and no car or $4000-6000 for a repair would be catastrophic financially for most economy car owners. FWIW, the dealer sure didn't act like our situation was rare...
