Honda Customer Service and the 2nd gear grind
 

Alright, Honda seems to have THE worst customer service of any company I've dealt with in a long time. I now know what everybody is talking about when they say this and try to get any warranty work done on their cars.

I have a 2002 S2k with 14k miles on it that has had the 2nd gear grind since it was new. Like many others, I attributed this to perhaps driver error and gave the transmission a chance to wear in as it got more miles on it. I randomly and intermittantly get the dreaded 2nd gear grind, even though Honda claims their fix for the '02s was the be-all, end-all of the 2nd gear grind phenomenon.

My real question is, since it's hard to replicate the grind and to get it to do it on a regular basis, how many of you have had the grind repaired on your cars without the dealership replicating the problem on their own or without them actually seeing the problem replicated? My dealership claims they took it up to 8000rpm and shifted and everything was fine. I'm sure they probably didn't do it under much of a load, but I don't know exactly what circumstances they tested it under.

I have gone around and around with my service advisor, I talked to the service manager, I talked to American Honda Customer Relations (in which the guy I talked to refused to give me the name and/or contact information of anybody up the chain of command), and I even went and talked to the executive office of American Honda. They forwarded me back to a lady in Customer Relations and she said she would hand-carry a note to a gentleman who is the manager for District 3B (which I would assume is the district I'm in), and he would call me back as soon as possible. I still haven't heard from anybody.

Needless to say, even though I personally currently own 4 Honda cars and a Honda lawnmower, my parents currently own 3 Honda cars and a Honda lawnmower as well, and I have put over 200k miles on standard transmissioned Honda cars, they still want to insinuate that it is "driver error" and that I may have damaged the 2nd gear synchros even though none of my other cars have anything remotely similar to this problem (including a '91 CRX Si with 180k miles and a turbocharger on it, which still shifts and drives like a brand new car). What a great way to treat a loyal customer.