Blinking Green “D” (Drive) Light While Driving Our Honda Odyssey

by Michael on September 2, 2010 · 0 comments

We have a 2004 Honda Odyssey with about 110k miles on it. We’ve never really had any problems with it, and have always taken good care of it. Nonetheless, we just had a bit of a transmission scare.

Over the past couple of weeks, my wife has gotten a blinking green “D” (drive) light on several occasions. A quick check of the owner’s manual revealed that this behavior signals possible transmission trouble.

As it turns out, the 2nd generation Odyssey has a history of transmission trouble. This was especially true of those built between 1999-2001, though some problems persisted until at least 2003.

Anyway, our van hasn’t been showing any symptoms of transmission trouble – it’s shifting smoothly and reliably, never slipping, etc. – but you never know…

A bit of Googling revealed that this warning light can foreshadow anything from a minor transmission repair (replacing a pressure switch) to a full blown transmission failure.

In our case, we lucked out. We dropped the car with our mechanic this morning and got great news later in the day. The warning light was apparently alerting us to a problem with the 4th gear pressure switch, which is a simple and (relatively) cheap fix.

They got their hands on the part later in the afternoon, and had us fixed up and ready to roll by the end of the day.