Honda? Reliable? Wat?

[EyeMWing]

Do Honda Civics have some kind of retardedly short design life? Are critical pieces made of plastic?

My best friend drives an '03 Civic sedan of some description and despite having been dealership-serviced for its entire lifetime, it's breaking in TERRIFYING ways.

Last summer, at 43,000 (mostly city) miles, the (automatic) transmission ate itself. The dealership stated this was the "design life" of the transmission, and happily charged for a rebuilt one. I was blamed for this failure, because not long before, I'd flogged the piss out of the car through the desert a very short time beforehand, which also happened to be the first time it ever drove outside the LA gridlock.

Today, at 60,000 miles (most of the intervening miles were long-distance highway cruising) the engine "died and dumped oil everywhere, and doesn't start anymore".

She's a bit car-retarded (hence the dealership servicing) and thus didn't bother to do any diagnosis before she stuck it on a flatbed aimed towards the stealership and continued about her 21st birthday celebrations, but based on the details I know, the prognosis is... Not good..

Let me reiterate - every 3,000 miles, like clockwork, this car has gone to the dealership for them to tick the appropriate logbook boxes. It's spent most of its life as a city runabout, and all of a sudden now that it's getting real miles put on it, it's had two EPIC FAILURES within the space of little more than a year. The dealership saw NOTHING unusual about a 43k mile transmission failure. I suspect they're going to see nothing wrong with whatever's gone wrong this time around, either.

Oh, and the paint is peeling.

What really gets me is that she's always on me about MY car being unreliable. Which is funny, because my car was built a year before hers, in a UAW plant, by a wife-beating, Budweiser drinking man named Steve and while it's had a whole series of stupid things break, it's had a much longer (miles-wise) and harder life and has never had a single major failure.

[Dogbert]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_law

The dealership passing a 43k transmission failure off as normal is total bullshit. Call them on it. Go to the service manager, and if necessary, go to Honda Corporate.

[EyeMWing]

Lemon laws aren't applicable at this age/mileage. The transmission thing is over, done and paid for. I think she ended up getting Corporate to comp the labor cost, but not the transmission itself. And you're right, it was in fact TOTAL bullshit, because the only way a transmission could ever be expected to last only 43k is if the whole thing were made of plastic.

[nist7]

Ok so you "flogged the piss out of the car through the desert" and then the slushbox fails shortly afterwards..... I knew a friend who had an almost brand new VW of some sort, it was winter and he was stuck in some snow pile turning a corner on a small street (where large snow plows have made nice mini-snow walls) and was flooring it to try to get it out (yes another car-retard) and the auto transmission blew up shortly afterwards.

The sudden oil spill is interesting though. And as you mentioned that the owner is a "car-retard," so I would not be surprised if user abuse/error/stupidity comes into play.

My 1995 Accrod, also built by American hands in Canton, Ohio, has seen its fair share of the red-line RPMs, at 189k and no major failures. And of course this is one isoalted incident, I see alot more mid 90s Accords and Civics and Camrys on the road than Taurus/Cavaliers/etc.

[Sevs753]

i have a friend who's father owns a '02 civic and theyve had no problems at all with it. like, nothing, whatsoever has gone wrong. they get the oil changed every 3k and such but nothings broken on it. my same friends '02 Nissan Sentra on the other hand....

[FATMOUSE]

My mom has a 1997 Civic. It's over 204,000 miles now.

The drivetrain is all original.
On suspension/steering, it has new steering tie rods.
Brake pads have been changed, tyres have been changed on a normal schedule.

It's only had routine maintenance for the most part for the running gear.

[EyeMWing]

Originally Posted by nist7

Ok so you "flogged the piss out of the car through the desert" and then the slushbox fails shortly afterwards..... I knew a friend who had an almost brand new VW of some sort, it was winter and he was stuck in some snow pile turning a corner on a small street (where large snow plows have made nice mini-snow walls) and was flooring it to try to get it out (yes another car-retard) and the auto transmission blew up shortly afterwards.

Yeah, that stuff happens - but you probably didn't do NEARLY enough hot-weather testing if it can't stand a single flat-out run from LA to Vegas. Very poorly geared transmission, too - it was doing some SERIOUS hunting on that trip trying to maintain 85-90mph. So yeah, it was probably that trip that did it - the question is did they even bother testing the thing under extreme conditions?

The sudden oil spill is interesting though. And as you mentioned that the owner is a "car-retard," so I would not be surprised if user abuse/error/stupidity comes into play.

I question whether owner neglect can come up AT ALL when you defer everything to the dealership and do it like clockwork every 3k with instructions to "Change the oil, do any other scheduled stuff and check to see if anything else is going wrong". That's actually pretty damned good as far as the uninitiated get with maintenance.

And I'm hard pressed to figure out ANYTHING you can do on public roads with a slushbox that would cause it to dump oil and die other than plain old mechanical failure (or ripping the oil pan off, but that's hard to do sitting in traffic on the 405)

[Zaris]

That's pretty catastrophic for a Honda that averages only 10,000 miles a year for six years. But it does sound like your friend was probably abusing the car to the limits for oil to spill out of its workings.

I can't speak for the reliable engines that many people affirm Honda to have, but in my experience their cars are built to a budget. When it came to buying a new car for me earlier this year, my dad test drove an '06 Civic. I thought it was unnecessarily loud at highway speeds. Well, turns out that I was proven correct last month when my roommate from college came to visit me in his '09 Civic sedan. It too was loud above 45 mph and I hated the amount of dashboard on the car (you could setup a chess game to play with the driver on it). There were so many things to complain about the quality of the interior that I honestly believe now that, while it is a cheap car to buy and you get the so-called low maintainance engine that you wouldn't get from German competitors, Honda skimps out on creature comforts like soundproofing and air conditioning (the base model doesn't have the latter as standard. That's inconceivable for me). And some things just don't feel designed properly, such as the unintuitive door handles and buttons on the center console that face up towards the sun. That's just asking for fade.

My father owns a Honda Pilot. Last year, while driving to work in San Francisco, I was driving fairly close behind a truck and some invisible debris on the road got picked up from the wheels and hit my windshield. It left a small crack on the lower righthand side that slowly grew to about one foot over two days. Dad had to pay for this himself since warranty doesn't cover for stuff like this. April this year, I took my dad's Pilot when I moved to Los Angeles to accomodate a bed mattress. When I went back home to return it and bring the Golf to LA instead, I made sure to keep my distance from the trucks, but lo and behold, right before I switched interstates from the 5 to the 152, another invisible rock smacked a dent clear center of the replaced windshield. It's like a small 4-pointed star now no more than 3/4 of an inch long. But dad ain't gonna replace it this time.

I've seen brightly visible objects hit my Golf windshield before and it's without a scratch afterward. So you can add glass thickness to the list of things that Honda skimps on as well.

Reliable? Maybe. Lots of friend's cars have racked up the miles with them and they trust the engine reliability. But critical pieces made of plastic? It sure as hell feels like it.

[Clegko]

Originally Posted by nist7

My 1995 Accrod, also built by American hands in Canton, Ohio, has seen its fair share of the red-line RPMs, at 189k and no major failures. And of course this is one isoalted incident, I see alot more mid 90s Accords and Civics and Camrys on the road than Taurus/Cavaliers/etc.

I have a 94 Accord with 200k+ miles on it, and like yours, has seen many red-line RPMs and standing WOT runs either getting on the highway, or racing the asshole in a Cavalier (Did I say racing? I meant... erm...). Not to mention, just 2 weeks ago, it partook in a 4000 mile round trip from Oklahoma to a race track in Ohio. The only problem I had with it was that the damn thing just did not like doing 90 mph on the highway.

[Dogbert]

EyeMWing, I'm wondering if your friend does Showroom Stock club racing on the weekends without telling you.

[NecroJoe]

My girlfriend's 1996 Civic is at 190,000 miles (306,000km+) and in the 6 years I've known her, the only issues she's had was a power window motor failure and her auto transmission lever has to be pushed ALL the way forward, or else it won't give up the key. That's it.

My 2001 Cougar, on its 2nd day of ownership about 2 years ago, needed a new starter. :-p

[Spectre]

You can ruin the automatics by driving through deep-ish water, as in urban flooding.

[EyeMWing]

Well, yesterday's failure wasn't as bad as it could have been. Some animal-chewed wiring shorted and partially killed the ECU. Can't blame Honda for that. When they checked, the car had plenty of oil - best guess is that what she saw as "OMG OIL SLICK" was actually just ambient oil and grease on the wet road.

[jayhawk]

Hondas sometimes have (had?) transmission issues, maybe a bit more than the other Japanese makers.

[maxtortheone]

Originally Posted by EyeMWing

(...)Some animal-chewed wiring shorted(...)

How's that possible? Chipmunks?

[AudiV6]

The most deadly thing for an engine are short distance drives, the engine doesnt really heat upto average temparature before it will be turned off again and the Oil doesnt lubricate the engine that well, infact it gets slimy after a while (open theoilfillercap and you'll find some oil glibber).

And then someday when you decide to go abit more farer away, drive for instance on the motorway, the pistons will eat the crankcase, and you can drive straight to your local dealer, to have the engine replaced.

[awdrifter]

Hondas are generally reliable, but they do seem to have slightly more problems than Toyota. My dad's '00 Accord blew the cam seal at around 80k miles, good thing he noticed it before all the motor oil were leaked.

[EyeMWing]

Originally Posted by maxtortheone

How's that possible? Chipmunks

Chipmunks, rats, cats, squirrels, etc. Rats and cats are the primary suspects.

[MadCat360]

Originally Posted by EyeMWing

Chipmunks, rats, cats, squirrels, etc. Rats and cats are the primary suspects.

My cat will chew any wire compulsively. I have to be careful.

My family's 06 Accord wouldn't start last year. Needed a new starter motor.

[Tobias]

My Honda is quite reliable. I hit 8k rpm all the time, just have to check oil weekly.