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Honda Accord Quality Control Issues
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Comments
The most prevelant problems with the Odyssey were the brakes and a high pitched wheel vibration. The brakes would get a grinding noise, especially noisy in reverse. The first few times, the dealer would simply adjust the brakes. The pads, rotors, calipers, shoes, etc. all checked out fine. Eventually Honda refused to pay for it even though it was still under warranty saying "brakes are a wearable item". I had the vehicle 2 1/2 years and the brakes service about 4 times. I b*itched like hell to the dealer and regional, but no luck.
They were excellent though with the high pitched vibration at higher speeds, but had to take it in several times, each time they gave us a rental car. From reading other Odyssey message boards, this seems to be a common problem with the Odyssey, with no easy fix.
From talking with co-workers who are loyal Honda owners, they feel that Honda cars in general are very finicky (sp?) in regards to the vibrations. I've also noticed my CRV is getting like that but my tires need to be replaced so I'll take care of it then.
generally you take a cue from your "higer-ups" and when corporate immediately assumes a negative slant on things, it will trickle down and affect your everyday dealers. why should they go above and beyond when they can go back and say, "well, corporate wouldn't do this, so why should we?"
and again, that doesn't apply to ALL honda dealerships. but it's something i've noticed.
I do know we get a lot of customers from out of the area customers who perfer our service department to their local one.
But I'm sure we've ticked some folks off too.
It's not easy to run a profitable auto repair shop where all of the customers are happy all of the time.
Still, the overall attitudes determine everything.
In addition, how does the show room compare between Acura and Honda. I would assume that Acura is more professional and customer service friendly.
I am bringing this up as today, I took my car in for an oil change at my Honda servicing dealership. While in the waiting room, one lady told me she had steering problems on her 1999 Accord. Another man told me he had brake problems on his 2000 Accord. Then I noticed a car being towed in to service. It was a 2001 V-6 Accord and the man was telling the service advisor that the transmission wouldn't engage and all the car did was rev!
http://search.bbb.org/national/search.html
Enter the name of the dealership, city, state and look at the number of complaints that have been filed against a dealer. Also check out who gets their BBB membership revoked for 'bad' behavior.
I guess we have to put such information into perspective, check with friends and neighbours to see if they've had experience with a dealership too.
I'm driving a 2000 EXV6 and I think it's a wonderful car (touch wood). After reading some of the bulletins in Edmunds I visited a dealership to checkout some of the issues and the dealership corrected these ok (rattling sunroof, wing mirrors).
Has anyone had problems with the rubber seal on the top of the passenger door behind the driver. At the end of the rubber strip, the plastic grommets don't grip correctly so sometimes it sticks out when the door closes???
Went with him for an oil and filter change and noticed more of the "white glove" treatment. The car was hand washed and vacuumed after service. The inside and outside glass was also cleaned.
I guess when you pay more than $35K for a car, you get better service!
$10 at a nearby garage. Hence no more Honda work at that dealership. Toyota is a little better but too expensive.
Dealer B follows the printed Honda maintenance schedule as indicated in the owners manual. The service writer there made me feel comfortable.
I guess the moral of my story is to check around for Honda service. You might be surprised.
Hey Auburn63: Come on down to central VA from Jersey. Hope you're staying busy...
j.w.
Has anyone else noticed the thin sheet metal on Accords?
The sheet metal on all Honda products is very thin as compared to the competition. At one time, it was blamed on imported steel but Hondas are built with US produced steel.
Compared to other car lines, I would agree that Honda's sheet metal is a lot thinner than most. Don't think that it would influence many on the future purchase of an Accord though!
among the failures in 1 year and less than 20,000 miles: clutch slave cylinder replaced, brake master cylinder replaced, fuel system problem caused the engine to vibrate violently in colder weather, "tea kettle" whistling from the rear even when stopped that the dealer could never diagnose, the list goes on . . . the final straw was at 20,000 miles and warped brake rotors which i was supposed to pay for because they are consumable items - at 20,000 miles!?!?!? i've owned 6 accords previously, some with nearly 100,000 miles on. i'm easy on the brakes and have NEVER replaced rotors on a honda before. interestingly enough, i read in car & driver shortly after i purchased my first A4, that ford had recalled vehicles because of warping brake rotors (hmmmm, same part supplier??)
and yes, maybe it was the part suppliers that underminded honda. as isellhondas mentioned in an earlier post, sometimes it is the part supplier that is truly to blame. but that's where the problem is. USA doesn't seem to have the infrastructure to support the quality parts that honda specifies in their cars. my brother's prelude and a friends CRV are noticably better than the 98 accord i had in terms of interior material quality and structural integrity. my brother beats the crap out of his 1999 prelude but the interior is squeak free yet and the car had not had a single problem. previously i had a few problems with my 95 EX coupe and then the lid blew off of my '98. it seems as more parts were sourced in the usa, the quality was dropping.
when i used to browse honda message boards on the net it seemed the only posts were about new features coming out or how people loved their hondas or what mods were out there. i've been lurking on boards for a couple of months now and the negative responses are overwhelming. rather than get rid of my autobahn bullet, i think i'll refinance it to lower my payments and just swallow the fuel consumption
The Accord sheet metal is flimsy but I noticed other car companies have roughly the same quality. I guess the US has now set the norm for thin sheet metal.
Honda seems its biggest problem are domestic suppliers that seem to produce troublesome parts. Most of these suppliers also supply GM, Ford, and Chrysler so you can now make your own conclusions.
Does Honda or Toyota have less problems in domestic production?
Parts in glove box came loose and would rattle
Front door foot panels were installed improperly
Seat would move in its track and needed replacement
The windshield was installed at an angle and needed to be removed and reinstalled
The interior lights pulsate when slowing down
Parts fell off in the door
Parts in sunroof became loose and sunroof would not close.
it's funny my dealer was saying the ones that they are building in Mexico have bad paint.
As for the thin sheetmetal...Yes it is thin but it is part of the attribute that makes the car fun to drive and tossable.
actually, that IS who i bought my car from.. at the time, i thought the service was great... but i wasn't impressed with the follow-up, or the fact that i had to hound them to get touch-up paint, and my window sticker (which they lost and never got me a new one)..
however, i do still receive birthday cards from them. a nice touch.
and if their prices are competitive, then i'll probably call them for 30k service prices.
but thanks for the info.
Biggest problem I had was with my air conditioner, they just didn't seem to know how to adjust it to make it colder. Finally took it to another dealer who got it right the first time.
One thing I did notice at the dealership where I purchased my Accord--new salesmen each time I walked into the show room during servicing. They would last 3 months then move on. The position of sales manager changed so often you couldn't keep track.
Thanks in advance for any comments you may have.
Take all of these complaints you read with a grain (big) of salt. I'm not saying that they are untrue, but remember that Honda sells 400,000 Accords a year. Who's the most likely to go out of their way to complain, satisfied customers or those with a gripe? And the same complaints are repeated over and over here on Edmunds.
I'm not saying Honda is perfect. I'm not even saying that their quality might not have slipped over the past decade. But I still think they are one of the premier auto makers when it comes to quality and reliability. The same goes for Toyota, of course, and the Solara would likely be a good car, too. But don't let a few oft-repeated harangues scare you away from Honda.
5 years ago, I would have recommended the Accord in a flash but unfortunately, there are better choices today in the automotive market.
Also since you aren't buying until next year an all new Accord will be out by then. I believe the Solara is still based off the old Camry platform.
IMO another benefit to buying a Honda (at least in the US) is the simplicity of their models. You want the sunroof you get an EX (US). Toyota drives you crazy with their options. *rant coming* Once upon a time Japanese cars were supposed to be a simpler alternative to domestics. Honda still subscribes to this theory, Toyota and others do not (my opinion of course).
I have driven the Accord V-6 Coupe as well as the Solara V-6 and their is no comparison. The road noise in the Solara is virtually non-existant whereas the Accord is more pronounced. The Accord handles better on turns etc. I suppose if you get the TRD upper strut tower brace for the Solara, it would handle as well as the Accord. The Solara V-6's transmission shifts flawlessly whereas the Accord isn't as smooth. The Accord V-6's transmission has been troublesome. This alone would switch me to the Solara V-6 if I was considering a new vehicle.
A couple of anti-Honda people in these forums just love dragging this long solved problem through the dirt ad nauseum...
But look closely at the C&D article where the Accord came out first.
There was only one point between first and second. I bet there was not any statistical difference in the top 3 or 4 cars they tested.
They don't talk much about long-term reliability, except for their long-term tests. How can a car magazine make conclusions about reliability on cars they probably have for only a week?
I think the Camry is a good car, but so is the Accord. Where are the stats on the number of bad V6 Accord transmissions? I have a good one, which I guess I can repeat every time that lugwrench repeats about his bad one.
Oh, and I just had my first repair on my 99 CRV with 50K miles, had to replace the front disc pads. What do ya think lugwrench? Do all CRVs have brake problems now?
Take that for what it is worth. As far as brake problems mikefm58, I think your analogy is a little overboard.
Hey mikefm58, you should have gotten another 10K out of those pads. Must be riding the brake a lot. (snicker, snicker) Have a friend that got 65K on his CRV pads.
(Now just wait, my new Honda will be a POS, and I will be yelling at Honda Motor Company at the top of my lungs.)
Imc4--you are absolutely correct. Make Honda pay for the failed part. They do know about since they have a TSB on it. Honda will give you "one time" good faith repair if you press the issue. Doesn't matter if the car is out of warranty. If not, contact your State's respective Attorney General's Office and lodge a complaint.
Try a domestic dealer sometime. You probably wouldn't be able to lift the binder!
You delight in amplifing the few problems Hondas can sometimes have. you don't say much about the many others that cause no problems/
But think about it isellhondas, was that binder as filled 10 years ago? You expect better from Honda and not to bottom out to the level of the domestic manufacturers.
As our "resident gadfly" you sure come up with interesting approaches to address quality assurance problems. You have the approach that Honda can do no wrong and everyone else doesn't compare quality wise. The repeated denial on Honda connected problems amazes me.
I guess many of us here have to come to the understanding that isellhondas means well but just is a little piece of the Honda PR machine at work.
What bothers me is that this thread will be going along with good questions and responses on many issues. Then someone continuously chimes in with basically "V6 transmission is a POS". No one has even talked about that for 2 weeks and it seems this one poster has a penchant for concentrating one this one issue.
Perhaps isell does dismiss it too easily. I don't think he denies Honda problems. He has admitted to hearing of problems, but one person makes it seem as if every Honda V6 transmission fails which is simply not true. I would love to see the actual figures but we never will (from any manufacturer).
Modern cars are technical wonders made up of thousands of components that typically work flawlessly. If we truly expect 100% quality for the life of the vehicle, we'd be paying much more for Accords and Camrys than we do.
Believe this or not...I have literally backed up HUNDREDS of these cars and have never heard this clunk. YES!! some cars did have the problem and Honda fixed them under warranty.
I guess I get annoyed when this beat to death subject keeps getting revived by a certain person over and over. Knowing there are people new to these forums who aren't aware of former discussions I just feel compelled to respond.
Mikegold...the name caller.
If I have ever stated that Honda "can do no wrong" or said they were totally troublefree, than I am wrong. All makes and models of cars can and will have ocassional problems.
If this makes me a "resident gadfly" so be it!
And I don't think I have ever said that no other make compares quality wise to Honda either.
My biggest competition comes from Toyota.
In another thread, there is a subject related to Engine Sludge in Toyotas. Personally, I don't believe this problem is the fault of the car and have even jumped into that forum and said that.
When you find a perfect car, let me know!
Let me tell you one thing though regarding the V-6 transmission, there are problems and there are on going problems. Don't let anyone kid you, the V-6 transmission needs perfecting. The dealership that replaced my transmission told me I wasn't the first V-6 customer that has had his transmission replaced. It sounded as if, they see this problem all the time.
My new transmission runs fine but I always wonder now if it will hold up or should I trade it in. If I had to do it all over again, I should have bought an EX I-4. This is my two cents to the conversation.
On a Taurus or Chrysler mini-van it seems like that number is close to 100% although I have taken trade-ins with well over 100,000 miles and no problems.
Of course, the troublesome cars get all of the attention, like anything else. I'm sure that once a person has had a problem than they may be forever scared it'll reoccur.
My 99 EX V-6 coupe with 42,000 miles has been flawless. I've had the fluid changed twice and that's it. It doesn't clunk, thunk or anything else.