Honda paying out $6 million for 'overclocked' odometers

If you've been wondering how your Honda or Acura just seems to cover ground an awful lot quicker than your previous ride without even getting you a speeding ticket, listen up. Apparently, around six million Honda / Acura owners have been wheeling around in vehicles that are clicking off miles quite a bit faster than they're actually being driven. The Society of Automotive Engineers' voluntary standard for fluctuation in an odometer "is plus or minus 4-percent," and strangely enough, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration doesn't even regulate it. Honda claims that its units were "accurate to within 3.75-percent" on the high side, but a lawsuit against them claims that's just a bit too close for the average consumer's well-being. The automaker will be shelling out over $6 million in overcharges for leasers who were unfairly penalized for exceeding the agreed upon mileage, and will also extend the warranty mileage five-percent. Of course, Honda has since tightened up its standards (read: fixed the programming bug), purportedly "aiming for zero" in regard to future error, but if you happen to own a Honda / Acura purchased between April of 2002 and November of last year (or a select '07 Honda Fit), these benefits should be coming your way pending a district court judgment on the settlement.

[MarkZ @ Feb 19th 2007 7:56PM]

Lol, I'm not even going to begin to comment on how wrong that is.

[CaptCaveman @ Feb 19th 2007 8:51PM]

Well sign me up for some of that "Jap Crap". None of the American car manufacturers are doing it for me any more. My next car will be a Toyota Solara convertible. It will be replacing my Sebring convertible that I'm not happy with. And I'm even more unhappy with the service department.

It makes me laugh every time I hear GM, Ford, and Chrysler wonder why nobody is buying their cars. They need to talk to some of the customers and find out what they like and don't like about their purchase. Heck, maybe even send them some mail asking them if they would buy another when the time comes for a new car. But it seems that all they care about is getting your cash and outside of legal obligations that they have to keep from warranties they could care less about you.

I'm not saying that Toyota, Honda, Subaru, etc. are better. But I know what I've went through with a new American car and I won't spend another dime with another American car manufacturer.

[theattack @ Feb 19th 2007 5:12PM]

Old news. I got this message from Honda months ago. too bad i'm nowhere near the mileage limit on my lease.

[Christian Martin @ Feb 19th 2007 5:28PM]

Please ensure you are using the latest Honda BIOS update, and also note that increasing your odometer's voltage by more that +0.10V will void the warranty.

[Johnny English @ Feb 19th 2007 5:29PM]

Looks like somebody needs to go to Civic Hybrid driving school.

[Jeff Foster @ Feb 19th 2007 5:33PM]

er...

"over $6 million" (divided by) "six million Honda / Acura owners"

so, people will be rewarded "over $1" each?

[Anthony @ Feb 19th 2007 5:50PM]

I got this in the mail over the weekend. The amount of money they paid just mailing out the notices was probably more than the actual settlement.

[MrC @ Feb 19th 2007 5:59PM]

I got one of these last week for my 07 Fit. They are extending warranties by 5% as well, which means another 3500 miles on my 70k warranty.

Of course with my driving patters I'll be lucky to hit that by the time it expires time-wise.

[js @ Feb 19th 2007 6:04PM]

AppleCar, FTW!

[Paul @ Feb 19th 2007 6:06PM]

"
"over $6 million" (divided by) "six million Honda / Acura owners"

so, people will be rewarded "over $1" each?
"


For the sake of everyones time please go back to a 4th grade class for English lessons before commenting any further.

The article states that there are about 6 million vehicles out there with this "bug" and that there is $6 million dollars that is going to go to people who LEASE these vehicles and have been wrongfully charged for exceeding the preset amount of miles.

For example if I lease a Honda for 3 years and 40,000 miles, at an error rate of 4% the odometer will say 40,000 miles when in fact I have only driven 38,400 miles. When I return my Honda at the end of 3 years with 42,000 miles on it I am going to be charged for the "extra" miles even though I may have driven exactly 40,000 miles.

The money is not going to people who OWN the affected Honda's because they have not really suffered any monetary damages, aside from possibly getting their oil changed a little too frequently.

[jeff @ Feb 20th 2007 1:53AM]

First, dont lecture me about english when you can't even manage to find the "reply" button. :P

Second, i learned in 4th grade english that most times you need to read all the way to the end before making a counter argument:

"If you happen to own a Honda / Acura purchased between April of 2002 and November of last year (or a select '07 Honda Fit), these benefits should be coming your way pending a district court judgment on the settlement."

Did that say own? i think it did. it did not say "the fraction of the people out there who leased."

...and thus the set-up for my original comment. I always forget that there is that 1 idiot around here who need to have his hand held though the even most basic concepts of setups and quips.
yikes.

[carlo @ Feb 20th 2007 3:20AM]

As honorable as your criticism is, it's not entirely correct. Your comments make it appear as though you can't have read the actual settlement notice.

I received the notice and it includes owners as well as leasees. There are some of us who are owners that have had to pay for service because our vehicles were no longer under warranty.

Due to the extension of warranty in the settlement, my car remains under the terms of warranty and I am entitled to damages.

[IMLAK @ Feb 20th 2007 4:21AM]

The comment stil stands, not everyone who owns thiswill benefit. Only if you have actually been financially damaged by it (be it having to repair it outside your warranty when you should have been, or a lessee who paid for extra mileage) Most owners will NOT see a penny of this no matter what this very basic summary makes it seem. Nor will many lessees.

Hate to break it to you, but you don't get money if you are not wronged.

[Eh @ Feb 19th 2007 6:32PM]

I guess this could be bad for hybrid owners trying to ration gasoline, luckilly its not enough to seriously effect the resale value so I dont think its a huge deal.

[ENVi @ Feb 19th 2007 8:32PM]

Jeff, your math is off. The 6 million will be return to only people who lease. I doubt there was actually 6 million Honda lease in that time. I'm not a lawyer, but I know in some settlement, you get a share of the settlement base on the number of people who are claiming. Less people who claim for the settlement, means more money for you, of course, to a maximun limit set by the court.

[Zach @ Feb 19th 2007 8:32PM]

I don't know why cars are still allowed to have large (relativly) variations from actual mileage and speed. It isn't that hard at all to get accurate readings. A 20 dollar bike computer can do it without much trouble. The variation standard should be much less than 1%.

[Tian @ Feb 20th 2007 12:38PM]

Whenever I buy a new car I immediately test the odo/speedo (they're linked to the same ratio) using a GPS on the dashboard. If they're more than a couple of % out I immediately return the vehicle - each time they've meekly replaced a "ratio gear" that corrected the reading.
I've seen new cars in this country (South Africa) that overread by 11%!!!
If asked why they do it, they use the feeble excuse that they are helping people avoid speeding fines ... pathetic, since I figured out the real reason why manufacturers routinely over-report odo readings is so that they, in effect, raise the entire market by that percentage. Consider: if every vehicle clocked miles up 5% faster, then it means 5% more income on interval services across the entire market - also, sales will globally increase by about 5% since many people (in this country at least) will do their best to trade in their cars before they've clocked up 100,000km ...

On long trips I often amuse myself by timing the interval in seconds between kilometer markers on the highway while driving at a close-as-possible steady 100km/h, then using mental arithmetic to calculate the actual real speed ... one km is covered in 36 seconds at 100km/h. Any variation is a direct reflection of the variance in your speedometer.

Happy driving!

Tian
South Africa

[Jeff @ Feb 19th 2007 9:21PM]

"I'm not saying that Toyota, Honda, Subaru, etc. are better. But I know what I've went through with a new American car and I won't spend another dime with another American car manufacturer."

Uh, Chrysler hasn't been an American car manufacturer for years. They're less an American car manufacturer than Toyota is.

Your Sebring was likely made in Mexico by a car manufacturer owned and run from Germany. The Toyota Solara is built in Kentucky. Which is more "American"?

[KC @ Feb 19th 2007 9:54PM]

Yep. Just like how Chinese Dell and Apple are. With that kind of logic, there are no more American companies, with stuff being made outside of the USA now.

[Jeff @ Feb 20th 2007 1:52AM]

Engineering and manufacturing are different things.

American cars (domestic) - their only real downfall is their american engineering. The Corvette still uses a push-rod engine.

this isn't the 60s. wake up.

While BMW is putting out an inline 6, 3.0 liter twin turbo that makes well over 350hp and 400ft-lbs torque, weighs less, is more reliable, and costs less to produce.

Come on, American Car Manufacturers, get back in the game!

[xrmb @ Feb 19th 2007 10:02PM]

my Volkswagen GTI vs GPS is 10 miles off every 400 miles, thats 2.5%... but my GPS sometimes says I had a top speed of 180mph... maybe its just air missing in the tires, or the tire wear. i dont care, it probably makes the road safer.

[Luis Martinez @ Feb 19th 2007 10:11PM]

Uh... wouldn't this affect OWNERS as well if they are selling their car. That 3.75~4 change can add up to some car depreciation!

[ET @ Feb 19th 2007 10:33PM]

I got the same problem with my Toyota 2005 Camry LE. I use standard wheels (I know that some models have bigger wheels). When my speed odometer shows a 50mpg, my GPS shows only around 44mpg. That's over 12% of diff. It's either my GPS which is out of whack or my car's speed odometer is bad. Is there something I can do about it?

[Andrew Hillman @ Feb 19th 2007 10:43PM]

Sounds like a class action in the making!

Andrew Hillman

[Tom @ Feb 20th 2007 12:32AM]

Remember, even though the foreign car manufacturers have factories in North America, and most are partly owned by North American companies, a lot of money is leaving the continent, and none is coming the other way.

Now, how many Big Three factories are there in Japan? None. The free market is only working in one way, and the odds are set against the old North American companies. North America's regulations are far too loose, and it is the trade policies that are killing these companies, not their products. All cars break down, all cars eventually become money pits, it has nothing to do with what company makes the car. All car companies now make efficient models of all shapes and sizes, so what makes one company better than another just comes down to personal preference.

K back on topic... %4 is a major deal. It not only affects leasees, but also owners looking to sell, as said above. Try convincing the person buying your car it actually has 5000 miles less than it actually has. And those of you without winters may be forgetting that snow tires are larger than regular tires, so these would cause the odometer to run slower than your car is actually travelling. You have to wonder if they took something like that into account when making the car.

[Jeff @ Feb 20th 2007 1:57AM]

my snow tires are the same turning radius as my all-seasons, and my summer tires.

[???? @ Feb 20th 2007 3:35AM]

Honda and Toyota is one of the Japan's Top car maker.

I love drive them in Japan.

Love....
由佳小阪
http://yukakosaka.blogspot.com/

[Mark @ Feb 20th 2007 1:43PM]

My '99 Accord is slow by about 5-6% at 80MPH. I noticed it when I started using GPS.

[Mike @ Feb 20th 2007 11:11PM]

If they're at 3-4% now it's an improvement. I learned via my GPS in 1994 that my brand new Del Sol was off 10%. Took it in to a calibration facility to confirm. When I complained they replaced the speedometer / odometer. No change ( that wasn't the problem ) I was told that 10% was their standard and I was lucky they even tried.

For years they've been banking the "goodwill" they receive by people thinking they were getting 3-10% better fuel economy than they really were.

I think they learned this lesson from Hershey. They kept the candybar prices the same but gradually reduced the size. Honda couldn't do anything about the gas, so they made the miles smaller.

[Jeff @ Feb 21st 2007 9:21AM]

Actually I am pretty sure its 0 to +4% and that is a gov standard, at least that is what I was told when I worked on software for vehicle speed calculation. (Never checked it myself)
The reason is you can't go low otherwise people could get speeding tickets. And you can't get in the 0 to 1% range since the size of your tire is not constant. So we aimed to get as accurate as possible but tended to error on the high side.

[PatrickO @ Feb 21st 2007 3:27PM]

It isn't just Honda. My wife's 1997 BMW Z3 was always reading 5 miles faster per hour than the actual speed. Then the 2000 Z3 had exactly the same problem. A Road and Track feature in 2001 or 2002 had an article on the 10 best sport sedans (the Infiniti G35 won against the BMW 3 series); well guess what? Road & Track found that the BMW 3 series was reading 5 miles faster than the actual speed. Made me wonder if BMW was doing it, on purpose, and for two reasons: One, being that this is such a great road car, just feel it at 85 MPH - really 80 or less. Secondly, if it affected the odometer, then BMW would have the cars out of warrantee that much faster, and considering the cost of keeping one running that is no small thing. Just found it suspicious that two cars we had plus Road & Track all had the same problem.

Good place for an attorney to file a class action. BMW owners would love it.

[Peter @ Feb 21st 2007 6:35PM]

I have this problem with a 2000 Accord. It is very noticeable. In the Accord, the traffic on the freeway appears to go about 10-15 mph faster than when driving any other car. I asked the dealer about it and they said it would cost some ridiculous amount to 'diagnosis' it, with no guarantees that they could do anything about it and if they could, it there'd be no telling how much it would cost (in other words: mucho $$$; they pooh-poohed the idea in every way they could). Hondas totally suck.

[bc @ Feb 25th 2007 6:45PM]

Nobody mentioned that the lawyers are asking the court to have Honda reimburse them $9 million for their work. Also as part of the settlement Honda will extend the warranty miles 5%. So if you had a 3 year/ 36,000 mile warranty you now have a 3 year/ 37,800 mile warranty.

[eric Lauterbach @ Jul 19th 2007 6:27PM]

anyone know how i can find out if my pilot qualifies for this settlement???

thanks

eric