Honda Foreman Forums banner

Transmission problems with your Honda Rubicon?

Transmission Problems?

127151 Views 46 Replies 26 Participants Last post by  toodeep
How many of you have experienced transmission problems with your Rubicon? If you've experienced problems, what exactly happened and what was the resolution? In reading some of the posts, it sounds like a common problem among these machines. The problem begins with an abnormal sound / tick and then kaboom..."transmission had to be replaced". Please do not answer poll unless you have personally experienced a problem. "My friends Rubicon" or "I've heard" responses are not wanted. Please respond with first hand information only. I"m hoping that transmission problems with the Honda Rubicon are a rarity, not a common occurence as some of the forum posts seem to indicate. Thanks,
1 - 20 of 47 Posts
I'll be the first to respond. I've now put 40 hours / 170 miles on my machine and have dropped it off at my delership for the first service. So far, not a single problem with the Rubicon. I have noticed that the bike is sometimes difficult to put into gear when you're not on level ground but that's about it, a blip of the throttle fixes that. Overall, I've experienced no issues with my bike to date.
Quit tormenting yourself. Do you want to trade, I have an 06 500ES (which I absolutely love, they're bulletproof). I had a 2005 Ruby and put it through everything I could find, no problems whatsoever. I know how you feel, that's why I bought the Foreman. Rubicon never let me down but if it did I knew it would be an expensive fix. Let me know if you want to trade.....................
No, I'm not interested in trading my Rubicon for your Foreman. I'm honestly happy with my machine. I was just looking to seperate fact from fiction in regard to the transmission horror stories I've seen on this site and others.
2006 will have up-dated transmission & oil pump .. You shouldn't have any trouble with it ..
i have had problems with my tranny and i will try to explain it the bast i can. i had a 03 rubicon with about 4500 miles when the tranny went out. i was just out riding and it just quit on me. i took it to the dealer and told them to fix it because i wasnt messing with it ( i was about ready to sell it then) they told me that the AMERICAN MADE oil pump went bad and wasnt pumping the tranny any oil and thats why it went bad. to fix it i told them to put the 2006 oil pump and tranny in it because the new oil pumps and trannys were better. BTW the 2006 oil pump is a JAPANESE oil pump and is better than the AMERICAN pump, pretty sad huh. anyway they spapped the new 06 tranny and oil pump in and everything was good after that besides the angle sencer but thats a whole different story. IMO honda auto trannys are junk, they are worthless unless you run them in ESP. i takes so long for the oil to pump up so you can shift and usually by the time it does shift its too late and has to shift down again. if i was ever looking for another honda i would 100% go with the foreman 500, they only have 475cc's but as long as it dont have hondas auto tranny it will be alot better bike.
i hope this answers some of you questions.
-Aaron
See less See more
I wasn't aware that the 2006 model had an updated pump. Good information, thanks!
The oil pump chain came off my 04 Rubicon. Warranty covered it, so it was taken to Honda of Princeton Ky. They replaced the crank, piston, rods, rings and a bunch of things I didn't think was necessary other than the pump chain. All in all it was about 1,700 worth of parts and weather or not they were necessary I will probably never know.
They're a great machine, have fun with it. It's a Honda, case closed
I ride my Rubicon the same way i ride my 400ex, HARD. I haven't had a problem yet. 4200 km
i may be wrong but i think if you mud your rubicon that the tranny is going to break. mudding is hard on 4wheelers and i know for a fact that honda's auto tranny is not made for mudding, lugging around big heavy tires and the tranny always shifting cant be good.
-Aaron
QUOTE ("MAD MUDDER":3rmv1qrb)
i may be wrong but i think if you mud your rubicon that the tranny is going to break. mudding is hard on 4wheelers and i know for a fact that honda's auto tranny is not made for mudding, lugging around big heavy tires and the tranny always shifting cant be good.
-Aaron

I agree
G
No Go suddenly

I am having problem with my 2001 rubicon with 6319 miles one day it just stop going, the gears show up on the display fine but no go. I need to start looking at why this happened.
Been running 27" Outlaws for a year now since a week after I brought it home and have sunk it over and over again in peanut butter and I don't have any problems. Maybe it's all in the way you take care of it?!?! Honda builds true durability and quality thats why they out last the rest.
1 problem with the 2001 rubi is not for say the trany but the rad.(not really a problem but somthing to keep in mind) my rad got packed with mud and and in its location it is hard to get to and when i was doing some hard mudding one weekend before my heat light came on my bikes gears started to slip due to the oil being to hot so if you do hard mudding make shure to check your rad after every hard bogging day.
QUOTE ("MAD MUDDER":25l86j90)
i may be wrong but i think if you mud your rubicon that the tranny is going to break. mudding is hard on 4wheelers and i know for a fact that honda's auto tranny is not made for mudding, lugging around big heavy tires and the tranny always shifting cant be good.
in my family we have 4 rubicons and besides my rad, a few wintches, and a few good shirts there is no problems with mudding to a point if you go competition you will have problems. but good old canadian swamp you will be ok

2001 rubi 5481km 26" tires from new
2001 rubi 6064km 26" from new 27" for last 350km or so
2003 rubi 3973km 26" from new
2006 rubi 0.5 km 25" the new baby
G
Tranny

I put 2100 miles on my 05' Rubi with 27" Mud Runners for the first 300 and 27" Outlaws for the rest. The bike stayed in the mudd 99.9% of the time, when i was not hard core mudd riding, i was at my hunting club which is in a Louisiana Swamp. Never once did i have a problem with my tranny. It's also a good idea to change oil more often than what factory recommends.
G
I have new Rubicon ( 2006) and last time all gear indicators started falshing together ( esp, d1, d2...) and ..I have only 1 st gear( 12 mph max !) and cant do nothing more !!!! Terrible. Next day everything was ok but after one hour ride - the same problem...No transmission and gear indicators are falshioong on lcd display !
What should I do?
Some have same problem ?
G
I have new Rubicon ( 2006) and last time all gear indicators started falshing together ( esp, d1, d2...) and ..I have only 1 st gear( 12 mph max !) and cant do nothing more !!!! Terrible. Next day everything was ok but after one hour ride - the same problem...No transmission and gear indicators are falshioong on lcd display !
What should I do?
Some have same problem ?
1 - 20 of 47 Posts
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top