Honda’s 9-Speed Transmission Problems: What You Need to Know

The ZF 9-speed automatic transmission problems appear in the 2016 through 2022 Honda Pilot, the 2018 and 2019 Honda Odyssey, the 2019 through 2025 Honda Passport and the 2020 and newer Honda Ridgeline. The Passport range is worth a note, because it is the one owners get wrong most often: every third-generation Passport from 2019 through 2025 uses the ZF 9-speed, while the redesigned 2026 Passport switched to a 10-speed automatic.

The class action complaint includes “all current and former owners or lessees who purchased or leased any Honda vehicle equipped with a 9-speed automatic transmission.” That case, Moore et al. v. American Honda Motor Co., Inc., Case No. 5:23-cv-05011-BLF, is pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. As of August 2026 it is still pending: no class has been certified, no settlement has been announced, there is no claim form to file and no opt-out deadline is running. This is not the first time we have seen Honda Pilot and Honda Odyssey transmission problems.

Honda Passport Transmission Problems

The Passport is the Honda model owners ask about most on this transmission, and it is the model with the longest unbroken run of it. Every Passport from the 2019 relaunch through the 2025 model year was built around the ZF 9-speed automatic, which is why owner reports on the 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 Passport read almost interchangeably. The redesigned 2026 Passport moved to a 10-speed automatic and sits outside this discussion. If your Passport hesitates pulling into traffic, bangs into gear or drops out of gear on its own, the build year is rarely the thing that explains it.

Owners of model year 2019 through 2022 Passport SUVs have filed complaints with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration describing shifting problems, delayed acceleration, and sudden or harsh acceleration and deceleration. Two things separate the Passport reports from the general Honda picture. First, this same ZF 9-speed unit was alleged to cause defects in certain Fiat Chrysler vehicles before Honda ever used it, so the defect history follows the transmission rather than the badge. Second, because Honda fits this transmission across brands, Acura owners describe the same behavior, which is why we look at Acura claims alongside Honda ones. The complaints quoted below have been edited for grammar and clarity.

Passport Shifting Into Neutral While Driving

The report Passport owners repeat most often, and the one that matters most to a lemon law claim because it is a safety problem rather than a comfort problem, is the transmission dropping itself into neutral while the vehicle is moving. Owners describe losing drive on a residential street, while merging, and part-way up a freeway on-ramp, with the vehicle coasting until the ignition is cycled. One 2019 Passport owner reported it this way:

Was traveling at speed of 20 mph on a residential street when engine suddenly paused and car shifted into neutral. There was no indication of an impending engine failure. Emission warning lights came on and I was unable shift the car out of neutral to move it off to the side of the road. After multiple attempts to restart the engine, I was able to engage it in drive and move the vehicle to safe location.

A 2021 Passport owner with under 12,000 miles on the odometer reported the same failure twice inside a single year, plus the transmission dropping itself into a low gear on its own. In that owner’s words, “the last incident forced me onto the shoulder to avoid serious injury as I was gaining speed to merge from an entry ramp to a 50 mph, 3 lane Rd.” A second 2021 Passport owner reported the vehicle shifting into neutral while accelerating up a freeway on-ramp, with a transmission error warning light on the dash and no way to get back into gear until the ignition had been cycled a couple of times.

Passport Grinding, Lurching and Loss of Power

The second Passport pattern is mechanical and impossible to miss from the driver’s seat: the transmission slipping out of gear under load, with noise and motion that the whole vehicle carries. A 2019 Passport owner described the ZF 9-speed slipping out of gear on a set of downhill curves, producing “loud grinding, lurching, and complete loss of power while driving,” and having to coast to the bottom with the gears gnashing and the vehicle bucking. Delayed acceleration is the milder version of the same complaint, and it is the one most likely to be waved off at the service counter as normal behavior for a nine-speed.

Passport Transmission Control Module Failure and Code P0810

Where a Passport dealer does find something, the diagnosis owners report is code P0810, a clutch position control error, with the transmission control module replaced under warranty. One owner was told the module replacement might only be the first step, and that a second step would mean replacing the engine harness at a cost of roughly $6,000, with the technician putting about 80 percent confidence on the fault not returning. That is worth understanding before you accept a repair as final. A repair the dealer is not confident in is a repair attempt, not a resolution, and the warranty clock does not reset because a module was swapped.

What Honda Passport Owners Report to NHTSA

Two things recur across the Passport complaints and both matter to your file. The first is non-replication. Owners write that the “dealership claims they could not replicate the problem, nor had they ever heard of this problem,” and that “they told me they couldn’t find anything wrong with it.” The second is the brush-off from the manufacturer: one owner reported that Honda corporate described the behavior as “a normal breaking in” scenario and said to call back if it happened again. Neither response helps you on the road, but neither one hurts your claim either. A visit where the dealer finds nothing is still a documented repair attempt under California law, and being told that a vehicle dropping into neutral in traffic is normal does not make it normal. Keep every repair order, including the ones that say no problem found.