Just a guess.

I think your radiator has failed and the transmission fluid and coolant is mixing and or leaking. No, your car is not safe to drive.

Your best hope is a new radiator and 4x drain fill ATF change.

Worst case you have killed your transmission but I would try the above first.

 

I'm beginning to think you're right, having had more time to spend with this tonight, reading others' posts that describe similar issues. I checked the coolant reserve tank and the contents are strawberry colored with a bit thicker consistency. (I'm attaching a photo. The fluid looks darker here because of the shadow but you get the idea.) I've read others' descriptions of a this red fluid pouring out of the reserve tank; I'm guessing that's what I saw and cleaned off the other day and was leaking under my car.

By my estimation we've driven the vehicle about 15-18 miles since we first noticed it. Just around town trips, fairly easy driving, and not pushing the transmission too hard.

So assuming a new radiator and antifreeze, plus a transmission flush. Is there any way to know whether the transmission will be affected without committing to other repairs? I'm kind of gathering not...and I'm not thrilled about the idea of spending many hundreds of dollars without assurances it will fix the problem.

 

1. You need to figure out what the fluid was on the floor. Sounds like it was transmission fluid, but you need to be sure.
2. Check the other fluids (oil, power steering, coolant) levels, this may tell you which ones you're missing.
3. Don't drive it if you suspect transmission troubles. The loss of power is caused by slipping. Transmission relies on fluid pressure provided by a pump. If the fluid is all gone, you may burn out the pump, but you may also burn out the clutches as they slip without the proper pressure.

I you did drop your transmission fluid, a seal somewhere in the system failed. OR the dipstick, fill cover may have fallen off. Check for the easy things first. But if your transmission fluid came out somewhere else, have it towed or you'll risk more damage. Might cost you some money, but probably not more then two or three new car payments to fix.

 

If you don't have the know-how to check all the fluids as suggested above, I would have the vehicle towed to your mechanic and have it checked out. I'd stay away from the dealer as they'll pump your bank account dry and then talk you into a new car. Don't clean up the engine. Just leave it be so your mechanic can have all the clues needed to diagnose the problem.

 

Thanks everyone. One thing I keep reading about is how people saw "chocolate milk," which I assume to be coolant+oil, which I did not see. When I checked the transmission fluid there was virtually nothing on the dipstick (though I had to check it cold). When I checked the coolant reserve tank there was "strawberry milk" as pictured above. Would that be indicative of severity or potential success in replacing the radiator without damage to the transmission?

I've read plenty about this apparently common problem - which somehow I didn't know about until now - but I haven't read much about peoples' success in attempting to fix it. This is causing me a lot of stress for a vehicle that KBB says is only worth $3,500 (and probably a lot less now).

I'm just trying to think a couple steps ahead here in order to 1) minimize costs I'm going to sink into a vehicle that I very well could be disposing of soon, and 2) be prepared for a hurried new car purchasing situation I'm about to find myself in.

 

Call a Honda dealer far, far away from your location and ask to speak with the person who appraises trade-ins.
Describe the problem with your Pilot, explaining that you're almost ready to buy a new Honda and that you're trying to find out if it's worth fixing before trading it in.
See if you can get a rough estimate of what the difference in trade-in value might be before and after repairs - assuming that the repairs succeed.
This might give you some sense of whether or not you want to risk sinking any more money into your Pilot.

Regarding a "hurried new car purchasing situation", you can always rent a vehicle to give you some extra time to choose something new and make a deal.

 

If you are open to the option of keeping it, you can't make a decision or advance the process until you get an informed opinion as to what's wrong with it and an estimate of the cost of repairing it. Then assume it will last a year, if repaired. Therefore, anything you put into it, is the cost of a year's worth of use. The maximum added cost of this approach is the cost of the diagnosis. -

 

Good points. So after some phone calls today, here's where I'm at. Please let me know if you see any flaws in my thinking.

When I checked the transmission fluid, I saw almost nothing on the dipstick. Which suggests to my mechanic that perhaps the transmission fluid is merely low and not contaminated with coolant. So I can tow it in, and they inspect it. If they drain the transmission fluid and only transmission fluid comes out (as opposed to trans fluid contaminated with coolant), then it will cost about $1,050 to replace the radiator and flush coolant and transmission. Then, I still have to cross my fingers on the transmission, but the odds of success might be higher since it wasn't contaminated.

If, on the other hand, they drain the transmission fluid and it's contaminated, they stop immediately and I launch a search for a new car. I wouldn't even bother with a new radiator and flushing the systems because the chances of a bad transmission are much higher with it having been contaminated. I pay my small diagnostic fee but avoid the $1,050 and get on with life.

Or I just scrap the whole thing and start looking for something new, remembering that it's a 12-year-old, 130,000-mile Pilot that I might have replaced in a year or two anyway, just because.

Anything I'm forgetting? Otherwise this is how I will frame it with my wife tonight and we'll see what happens.

 

You do NOT want them to "flush" the transmission. The ONLY thing you do is drain and fill. So, if only ATF comes out of the trans then all they should need to do is put in the proper amount of ATF for a simple drain and fill (somewhere in the 3.5 quart range.) This is usually a $79-100 job tops.

Maybe I'm just out of the loop on what it costs to pay a shop to fix a car but I don't think the radiator should cost $1,000 to replace, even if the cooling system has to be flushed. A new Denso, (the Honda OEM), radiator from RockAuto.com is only $93 plus shipping. Even at 2-3 hours of labor (I don't think it should take that long) it is in the neighborhood of $300. So, $400-500 w/coolant, plus the ATF change, is what you should be out. I don't see why it should be much more than around $600. I guess if you buy a new radiator from Honda it's probably close to $400 but it will be no different than the Denso. You can use an aftermarket radiator from a local parts store, too, if you can't wait for a Denso to be shipped.

You're right, though, if they drain the ATF and find it contaminated with coolant it does not bode well for the transmission.

Too bad you're not close to Charlotte. I'd have you just tow it over for a reasonably priced attempt to repair and assess the damage.

 

I calculate if you use Denso radiator, Supertech Coolant and Maxlife ATF the parts cost would be under $200. I'm sure you could find a guy to come to you and repair at your house for $250 to $300.

You can get this job done for $500 with a little leg work, as Mr XGS said earlier.

 

Without a diagnosis, you're wasting your time with speculating and wishful thinking. Pricing out replacing radiators and such is premature. If the truck can't be driven, the next issue is how do you get it to the shop and home.

 

Without a diagnosis, you're wasting your time with speculating and wishful thinking.

SMOD (strawberry milkshake of death) says otherwise. That's not speculation, that's evidence.

 

If there is strawberry milk in the coolant tank then it is reasonable assumption the radiator needs replaced. You can drain the tranny yourself and inspect the fluid. You can get a case of Honda DW-1 for $89.00 shipped on ebay. So, as someone else said you can do the job yourself for $300 or less. The gamble becomes if it actually fixes the tranny.

 

Thanks for all the help earlier this week, everyone. I've been traveling for work so we haven't had a chance to do anything about it, but we're leaning toward simply trying to unload our existing Pilot and replace it with a new vehicle (likely a late-model Pilot but we're keeping options open).

I really hate to let it go because it's been a good car and although we'd talked about upgrading a year ago, we'd since decided to try to squeeze out another year or two. Being without a car payment has been nice. But this seems to me like a classic sunk cost fallacy type of issue. At absolute best we're spending a few hundred dollars just to earn the right to learn whether the transmission is bad. And if we get lucky and it isn't bad now, who's to say if or when it will be? Based on what I've read I'm not sure we'd ever be able to truly trust the vehicle again.

If it were a five year old car this would be a no-brainer. But it's 12 years old with 130K+ miles. I think I'd rather minimize my losses and put my money toward the next car.

 

can i have your cupholder?

 

 

Okay, I've got another update. After struggling with it earlier this week, I was able to get the transmission drain plug removed and get some transmission fluid out. I'm attaching pictures.

The coolant is blood red color with a consistency similar to, say, skim milk - not as thin as water but not much thickness. The transmission fluid is the strawberry/pink color with a consistency of chocolate milk. I took samples of each while the car was cold, where it has sat for 5 days now. Then I idled it for 90 seconds and took samples again. The before samples were virtually identical to the after samples. I thought I recalled the coolant looking more like the strawberry milkshake earlier this week when I saw it, but perhaps I'm remembering incorrectly.

So...thoughts? Is that complete contamination on both sides? And if so, am I correct in understanding that the transmission is assumed to require replacement?

This would seem to validate our decision to just move on to the next vehicle and not put more money into this one. Now I'm just wondering how best to dispose of it.

 

So...thoughts? Is that complete contamination on both sides? And if so, am I correct in understanding that the transmission is assumed to require replacement?

This would seem to validate our decision to just move on to the next vehicle and not put more money into this one. Now I'm just wondering how best to dispose of it.

Sadly, it doesn't need to be "complete contamination" to damage the transmission. Apparently, the friction material on the clutches is very sensitive to water, and once they are exposed it's a ticking time bomb. Or so I have been told. [ More accurately, the adhesive that holds the friction material to the clutches is sensitive to water. ]

I had SMOD in a 2003 MDX at about 153k miles and 9.5 years of loyal service, and ended up getting a rebuilt transmission so my daughter could "inherit" it as a college car. Cost about $5k. More recently, I got a new 9-speed trans in a 2016 Pilot Touring ( under warranty ), allegedly because of microscopic contamination with water. According to the tech, the ATF looked fine but smelled funny. To quote: "smelled like aftershave, then after sitting overnight smelled like burnt clutch".

And for the record, that ATF (above) is heavily contaminated.

 

I think it's pretty clear you have the SMOD issue which is not necessarily a cheap fix, especially if the tranny has to be rebuilt/replaced. If you would have stopped driving immediately when the problem first surfaced, you likely could have saved the tranny. I have my doubts that it can be saved at this point.

See this thread for pics of the problem... which is not a Pilot/Ridgeline exclusive, but affects other makes and models as well.
Pictures of corroded/rusted radiator fittings - Honda Ridgeline Owners Club Forums

The heat exchanger in the bottom of the radiator is held on by 1/8 inch of threads, so it doesn't take much for them to fail. Unfortunately, while this issue is not common, it happens all too frequently.

The new Denso radiator available from ROCK Auto for ~$150 allegedly fixes the design problem that causes the SMOD.

Depending on your financial situation, your current RL with 130k on it is likely barely at 1/3 life. But only you can decide if it's worth putting a few thousand in it to repair the radiator and transmission. Once repaired, if the Pilot is otherwise in good shape, I see no reason why you can expect many more years and miles of service out of it.

So you have to take your finances into consideration and decide if a few thousand in repairs to an otherwise dependable car is worth it compared to the cost of buying another vehicle. Used, will also be a crapshoot unless you get a decent warranty or it still has some factory warranty remaining. New will always have the factory warranty, but you pay for it.

For the record, my nearly 12 year old 2006 AWD Pilot has nearly 140k on it and runs fine. I do maintain it (over maintain the tranny) and when I had the TB/WP/sparkplugs/valve adjustment done at 120k miles, I preemptively had a new radiator installed, simply because I was aware of the SMOD issue.

Good luck with your process.

 

I think it's pretty clear you have the SMOD issue which is not necessarily a cheap fix, especially if the tranny has to be rebuilt/replaced. If you would have stopped driving immediately when the problem first surfaced, you likely could have saved the tranny. I have my doubts that it can be saved at this point.

...

Good luck with your process.

Thanks for the reply. And thanks to everyone on this board who replied earlier and have posted elsewhere about this issue. It was of enormous help to me. It took a lot of research and discussions with a few different Honda mechanics, but I concluded that this issue was in fact what happened to our Pilot. One mechanic estimated the chances of saving the current transmission at 50/50.

Given the likely thousands of dollars in repairs we were looking at, and the fact that we'd long since started saving for this Pilot's replacement, we decided to move on. Even if this issue had never arisen, we likely would have upgraded in a year or two anyway. We sold it to someone who has the expertise to fix it up for himself, and two days ago picked up our 2017 EX-L.

 

Congrats!

Check out the vcm/muzzler thread here too. You may find that of interest. VCM is one thing you didn't have to deal with on your 2005.

 

Is that an issue with 2017 Pilots? I'm not familiar with it. Could you give me a link to get started?

 

I'd have to search for it. Here's a link to a FAQ at the ROC in regards to the Muzzler.

VCMuzzler II for disabling VCM - FAQ's - Honda Ridgeline Owners Club Forums

I'm not intending to promote the Muzzler, but I am simply not a fan of VCM and the associated issues (high oil consumption, engine rebuilds, etc) that appear to be attributed to VCM that some, not all, have experienced. The Muzzler is the only viable solution that I know of.

If I find the thread here, I'll edit this post to include it.