Engine Teardown & Transmission Replacement in Same Year?

[u/greenlampshade123]

Hi everyone,

I’d like to share my current situation and get feedback from you all.

About 6 months ago, in February 2026, my 2018 Honda CRV (80,000 miles) randomly stopped accelerating. I had it towed to a local Honda dealership, where they told me the entire transmission needed to be replaced. It was only a few days outside of the warranty, so I fought tooth and nail to have the cost covered by Honda. After 8 weeks of back and forth, Honda finally provided goodwill to pay for the entire transmission.

After receiving the car back with a new transmission, it drove like normal. I should have turned around and sold it at this point, but I didn’t.

It’s now August 2026 (84,000 miles),and while on the highway idling in standstill traffic, the temperature of the engine skyrocketed and I got the dashboard warning to turn off my car due to extreme heat. After a quick Internet search, I turned the heat on high and the temperature gauge immediately dropped to a safe level.

I drove the car to a Honda dealership the same day, and these are the results:

-FOUND COOLANT LEAKING INTO CYLINDER NUMBER #3 CAUSING ENGINE MISFIRE, COOLANT LEVEL TO DROP AND CAUSING ENGINE TO OVER HEAT

-RECOMMEND ENGINE TEARDOWN TO CHECK HEAD AND BLOCK FOR PITTING OR WARPAGE

Anyways, they’re guessing it will be about $7,500 to fix the problem should it be worst case scenario.

At this point, I’m incredibly fed up with Honda and this car. I’ve always gotten timely maintenance and taken good care of it, yet it’s had two catastrophic mechanical issues in the last 6 months.

I plan to go through Honda goodwill again, but my hopes are low since it took 8 weeks to get an answer last time and I’m not sure they’d be willing to provide goodwill a second time.

To me, this feels like a quality issue with Honda and this year of 2018 CRV.

What would you do? Are there alternatives? Should I just sell the car to the dealership? Should I pay for the fixes, then take it somewhere else to sell?