Bought a used car, days later the transmission is busted. Options??
Hi,
Bought a used '19 Civic from a local Honda Dealership, 109,549 miles. It was freshly traded in, hadn't been thru service yet. It had a code A13457 on the dash and Maintenance Due Now, which they said was just a service reminder. Drove it, was fine.
Couple days later, 5/9/26.....returned to the dealer, after they "serviced" and cleaned the car. Looked nicer. Drove fine. Bought it.
Immediately after getting car home, realized the CVT transmission fill plug was not in place, and was an open hole into transmission, for who know how long. They said to drive it to them and they'll change the fluid, but it's a 35 min drive, and didn't want to cause any further damage, so I changed the fluid myself (simple, just like oil change).
The problems started nearly immediately. Backed out of garage, and parked car fine. Next time I tried to drive, started, idled smooth, upon selecting D, shuddered then stalled. Restarted and let it warm up a few min, then went into gear, drove around for 20 mins, no problems.
Since then whenever selecting D or R on gear selector, it stalls repeatedly. Eventually, once warmed, will go into gear and drive normally.
Called dealership, they said bring it into Service, they're "not one of those dealers" and "want to help", service called today and said it was a weird issue and they need help from Honda Technical Assistance. I know a mechanic there, and he said it looks like it needs a new trans. The service manager that called said they need it one more day at least, to see what Honda Technical Assist says.
Do I have any options? They sold me a car with Maintenance code and instead of addressing, they just cleared the code, both times I drove the car it was pulled up and warmed up which seems to hide the major issue, they didn't realize the Fill plug for trans was missing. I feel like they're gonna offer something weak like, free labor if I buy a trans, or something.
What can I do? This is messed up