Top 5 Problems Honda Odyssey Minivan 3rd Generation 2005-10

Hey, friends, it's Len here from 1A Auto. Today, we have a third generation Honda Odyssey inside the studio. I wanted to go over some of the top problems that we've come to find with it. Of course, along the way, you might even hear something that you've had an issue with as well. If you've got something to say, leave it in the comment section. Let's get started.

Let's start with the electric sliding doors on these Honda Odysseys. With the automatic sliding doors, essentially, you would kind of come over here, you'd give this a little tug and then it's gonna wanna do its thing. Automatically, you can stand back, you got whatever you've got in your hands. While a lot of times what happens with these, they might start opening, but then they just kind of stop. And then you get it going past its little binding point and then it continues on on its own like it should. You shut it, and it comes in and it latches perfectly.

Well, unfortunately on these, that doesn't necessarily happen all the time. There's gonna be a couple of different things that could potentially happen. It might be an issue with the latch, which would be located on the inside area of this door. If it's not functioning properly and it doesn't recognize that it's actually latching in, it might think that there's an issue where the door isn't functioning properly. And of course it might just reopen up on you. Other than that, what might happen is binding. If you go ahead and open it, it starts doing its thing and it gets kind of stuck here.

Right inside this area, along here, there's going to be a channel and there has to be bearings for that slider door to kind of just roll along. The bearings are made out of plastic. If they get gunk inside of them or they get worn down, it's gonna create a flat spot on them or a damaged area. That's gonna cause an issue where, as you pull the slider door back, those bearings might potentially bind into each other and then the door's kind of jamming. This is a very common issue right under here. And like I said, the latch is also another issue that these potentially have.

Now, for the second problem, we're gonna talk about something that's gonna be very common in most cars, but it's especially common amongst Honda Odyssey owners. Front brake pulsations. For front brake pulsation, what you're probably going to notice is a shake in your steering wheel as you're applying the brakes. And this is typically gonna happen after your brakes are nice and warm. Maybe you drove down the block, you went and got some ice cream, or you did whatever you did. All of a sudden, as you've been driving, you go to apply that brake again, you start feeling a little shake in the steering wheel and maybe even throughout the car. Typically, this is gonna come down to the front brake rotors. You're gonna wanna take a close look at them by removing the wheel so that way there, you can see the braking surface.

If you see any debris on there, or scouring, or anything the like, well, that's obviously going to be an issue. But typically, with brake pulsations, you're gonna end up seeing hotspots or hard spots. If you were to look closely at your rotor, this isn't the one for this particular vehicle. But what you can see is there's a hard spot that comes across right here. There's other discrepancies. But if you could imagine this brake pad squishing up against this right here, as you step on the brake, you come across that. Once this gets hot, it's gonna raise up. As that raises up, it hits against the pad, boom, boom, boom, throughout the whole car. Boom, boom, boom, boom depending on how fast you're going, right?

So, like I said, this is a very typical common issue for Honda Odyssey owners. So, we just wanted to mention it to you, and it's an easy fix, but if you replace the rotors, make sure you replace the pads at the same time. Now, for our third problem, we're gonna talk about a rear motor mount on this. It's gonna be very common for you to have a motor mount issue. And the way that you're gonna know that you have a motor mount issue will be vibration throughout the passenger compartment typically, and that's gonna be generally on acceleration.

As it tries to twist with the torque, it's gonna be putting pressure on those motor mounts. If the rubber bushing that's in between the areas of the metal of the connecting points is damaged, cracked, ripped, missing, it's obviously gonna cause an issue where it's not holding the engine or drive line from shifting around as you accelerate, de-accelerate, transmission shifts, whatever the case may be. You might feel thumping, you might feel bumping, or even vibration, like I said, throughout the passenger compartment. Typically, if you do find that you have a bad motor mount, whether it's torn or worn very badly, you'd wanna just go ahead and replace all the motor mounts at the same time. If one's worn, I'm sure they all are.

For our fourth problem, we're gonna talk about transmission shiftability issues. Now, what you might happen to feel for this transmission vibration issue would be, well, vibration throughout the passenger compartment. You're going for a nice ride, and for some reason it just kind of feels as though your transmission either isn't shifting up or isn't shifting down when you feel as though it's supposed to.

Maybe you're trying to go up a hill and for some reason the transmission just doesn't shift down, it's still up into D4, maybe even D5, and you're going up, up, up, and it's just not downshifting. Your RPMs are coming down. Everything starts to shake and jutter a little bit, right? That can be an issue. You might also notice that your check engine light comes on, and typically you might have a couple of different codes in there which could range between PO700 and PO730. There might be a couple others inside there as well, but essentially what it's gonna tell you is that you have a transmission issue.

What you might also notice is up on your dash where you have your little gauge cluster, it's gonna say D, and that light might continuously flash up in front of you. That's gonna let you know that there's definitely an issue going on with that transmission and it's definitely something that you need to get off the side of the road, as far as possible so you can be as safe as possible, and check that transmission fluid.

Okay. So, we've got our dipstick out here and we're looking for the markings that's gonna tell us where the hot section should be, because we've just been running the vehicle. If you notice that your transmission fluid is very low or even nonexistent on the dipstick, you know that that could potentially be an issue where you're not getting great lubrication throughout that transmission and there's no way it could function right. But if the fluid is technically full or up to where it should be, but it looks like it's really burnt and dirty, and as soon as you pull this dipstick out, you just got this really horrid smell, well, you know that the transmission fluid is probably cooked at that point.

So, basically what I'm saying here is check your transmission fluid. If it looks like it's low and you haven't serviced it in a while, it's probably a good idea to service it. Make sure that you're up to the maintenance. If you haven't serviced it in over 100,000 miles, it's definitely not a good idea to service it. You waited entirely too long and that's probably the reason why you're having this issue. Other than that, if servicing the transmission and making sure the fluid is up to par doesn't fix this transmission issue, you might have to actually replace the transmission unfortunately.

Now, for our fifth problem on this van, we're gonna talk about the third row seating. If you were to come right back here and you give this a nice little tug, it should technically release this seat so you can essentially fold it down. While everybody loves that and that's one of the definite perks about these vans, it doesn't always work on everybody's vehicle. We can latch this in and essentially what might happen to you, or somebody that has one of these Hondas, you give this a nice tug, you try to unlatch it and it just won't go.

The reason why that's happening is just because inside between this handle right here and the latch that's located underneath there, where we really can't see right now, how's the cable? The cable inside gets stretched. Maybe the latch inside has been kind of binding a little bit. And every time you tug on this, or even if you go past the actual latch release point, you're stretching that cable. If this doesn't work the way that it should, of course, that's gonna kind of be a downfall of this particular type of car. So, if you're having this issue where you pull on this and it just doesn't fold down the seat like you want it to, well, then just go ahead and replace the cable that goes in between there and you should be A-Okay.

Okay, friends. So, that's pretty much what I've got for you on a third generation Honda Odyssey. Every vehicle is gonna have its own problems. I'm sure you have a car of your own, maybe even a truck, and I'm sure you've got problems of your own. Like I said at the beginning of the video, if you've got something to say, leave it in the comment section below because I always love to hear from you. If you like the video, smash on the like button for me. It would mean the world. While you're at it, why don't you go ahead and subscribe, ring the bell, that way there you can be kept up with all of our latest content. Thanks.