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I thought Hondas were meant to reliable?

Accord990

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8th Gen Accord
Not sure if I've ever posted here before, maybe once or twice, but I think it's time I made a list of all the different problems my car has had/still has in my year of ownership.

Went from a 2006 S2000 to a "one lady owner" 2008 Accord ES GT Tourer with 88,000 miles in a bid to get something less expensive to maintain/run and something a bit more 'sensible'.

Anyway, to the point, here is a list of the all problems (and fixes if applicable) in one place just in case somebody stumbles upon it when researching whether to buy one, or fix a problem.

  1. High Pressure Fuel Pump - Shattered itself to pieces a week after buying the car. There's no warning when this happens except a few seconds before the car dies, during which you can hear a very bad crunching noise, followed by the engine stalling. This failure can take out the camshaft with it as the pump is directly attached to it (or via cams, I cant remember). The suggested cause was, at some point, somebody ran the car with petrol instead of diesel in the tank. The fix was replace the pump, around £750 from PFJones.
  2. All four injectors - due the pump failing and spraying metal towards the injectors, they were sent off for cleaning but came back as unable to clean due to the amount of metal fillings/shards that had hit them. Repairing them was nearly as much as buying ones so, the fix was to buy 4 new injectors from PFJones - nearly £1000. Sold old injectors on eBay for £100.
  3. Tracking wildly out on one wheel - caused by worn ball joint. Fix - ball joint replaced and tracking re-done.
  4. Clutch pedal sticking to floor - clutch was still working but pedal would fall to floor more and more over time. Fix - Master cylinder replaced as well as slave (slave was notching).
  5. Traction Control Switched Off Permanently (little triangle with exclamation mark permanently lit on dash). Fix - replace brake light switch. The switch has two circuits running through it and the brake lights will still turn on as a fail-safe even if there is a problem with the traction control/abs circuit. My brake lights still worked so I didn't initially blame the brake light switch. The problem is not readable by an ODB scanner but does some sensor flags deep in the ECU.
  6. Air-con not working - re-gassed to no effect. No effect on revs when turned on. Potentially compressor, though still to investigate.
  7. Rear washer jet not working - Pipe possibly pinged off, still to investigate
  8. Front sidelights and headlights - Blown multiple times in my year of ownership, more than any other car I've owned. Potentially dodgy/old fuses, grounding strap bad, headlight vibration... Need to investigate.
  9. Windscreen/windshield trim has come unglued - No-recalls listed for my car currently so it was likely done at some point but it has re-appeared (well, the trim has fully come off today). Need to take to Honda really.
  10. Handbrake cable snapped - Only one handbrake cable connected (which will still hold the car fine on a hill), the other is stretched. To replace both estimated cost is £400 including parts. This is due to the complexity of the cable routing.

I think that's it for now. All in all I'm pretty disappointed with the car reliability wise but happy with it in pretty much every other way!
If anyone has any advice for some of the current problems listed I'll more than welcome your advice or fixes you can do yourself.

P.S. Sorry if this isn't the appropriate sub-forum, feel free to move it Mods!

Cheers,
Chris
 
Sounds like you’ve had a (really) bad run of luck there. Some of the things you’ve had have cropped up before, but I don’t remember so many hitting one person in such a short period of time :-(

People are generally quick to criticise and slow to praise on forums / user groups / the internet in general. If your experience was typical you’d have no difficulty in finding other examples. Have a search for your particular issues, I doubt you’ll find many posts with similar woes.

Just hope your DPF doesn’t pack up on you. That would really rub salt in the wound!

1 & 2 I’ve heard before. Not just with Honda. Mis-fuelling a diesel can be catastrophic. If you know you’ve done it, done even start it to move it away from the pump. Perhaps you’ve that one lady who previously owned it to thank for that? Are you running a non-standard map that’s put extra strain on the fuel system?

3 could be wear and tear, a pot hole, curbing, etc. It’s 10 years old after all

4 I’ve not come across

5 is a new one on me too. Interesting. I’ll try and remember that ;-)

6 Did you go in and ask for your air con regassing or for your air con repairing? If you can’t hear the engine load change when it comes in it may be compressor or clutch or something else. Not really had any experience there. There’s whole lot of sensors in there, well beyond my level of DIY. I’ve a feeling there’s a post somewhere that says the air con must be functional for the DPF to regenerate (I’ve looked, but can’t find it just now). If that’s the case you might want to get it looked at before you get the dreaded exclamation mark.

7 Blocked pipe? Blocked nozzle? The boot doesn’t fill with water when you run the washer does it?

8 My 7th get went through tons of bulbs. Never got to the bottom of it, but they were relatively easy to change. The 8th get has had replacements, but nothing out the ordinary. Given what a faff the dipped beam is I fit standard (branded) bulbs rather than extra brightness types. In my experience what you gain in a marginal increase in light output is more than compensated for in reduced service life.

9 Don’t know if my windscreen trims were part of the recall or not, but I just glued mine back on. It’s not budged since… http://typeaccord.co.uk/forum/topic/24445-8th-gen-windscreen-clips/

10 My handbrake isn’t the tightest, and I’ve adjusted it more than once. It holds on a hill, but would like few less clicks. When I adjusted it I noted the cables were about 4mm diameter -you’d need a massive left arm (or a lot of corrosion) to break it.
 
Matt said:
Sounds like you’ve had a (really) bad run of luck there. Some of the things you’ve had have cropped up before, but I don’t remember so many hitting one person in such a short period of time :-(

People are generally quick to criticise and slow to praise on forums / user groups / the internet in general. If your experience was typical you’d have no difficulty in finding other examples. Have a search for your particular issues, I doubt you’ll find many posts with similar woes.

Just hope your DPF doesn’t pack up on you. That would really rub salt in the wound! Please no!

1 & 2 I’ve heard before. Not just with Honda. Mis-fuelling a diesel can be catastrophic. If you know you’ve done it, done even start it to move it away from the pump. Perhaps you’ve that one lady who previously owned it to thank for that? Are you running a non-standard map that’s put extra strain on the fuel system? Yeah I'm ***uming it was the previous owner - I've only ever put diesel in it and yes, it's a diesel haha.

3 could be wear and tear, a pot hole, curbing, etc. It’s 10 years old after all. Agree!

4 I’ve not come across

5 is a new one on me too. Interesting. I’ll try and remember that ;-) Yeah, thought it might be helpful to somebody at some point.

6 Did you go in and ask for your air con regassing or for your air con repairing? If you can’t hear the engine load change when it comes in it may be compressor or clutch or something else. Not really had any experience there. There’s whole lot of sensors in there, well beyond my level of DIY. I’ve a feeling there’s a post somewhere that says the air con must be functional for the DPF to regenerate (I’ve looked, but can’t find it just now). If that’s the case you might want to get it looked at before you get the dreaded exclamation mark. I did actually ask for the aircon to be looked at rather than just re-gassed but for the garage to call me before investigating too far and costing too much. Interesting about the DPF, I've not heard of that before, if true though I better that fixed sharpish!

7 Blocked pipe? Blocked nozzle? The boot doesn’t fill with water when you run the washer does it? Nope, no water in boot, would be great if it was just a blocked pipe/nozzle.

8 My 7th get went through tons of bulbs. Never got to the bottom of it, but they were relatively easy to change. The 8th get has had replacements, but nothing out the ordinary. Given what a faff the dipped beam is I fit standard (branded) bulbs rather than extra brightness types. In my experience what you gain in a marginal increase in light output is more than compensated for in reduced service life. Noted, cheers!

9 Don’t know if my windscreen trims were part of the recall or not, but I just glued mine back on. It’s not budged since… http://typeaccord.co.uk/forum/topic/24445-8th-gen-windscreen-clips/ Ah Sticks Like Sh*t! Top stuff. I had used a dab of superglue which held it down tight...for a little while. Didn't think of using a siliconey type glue to be honest.

10 My handbrake isn’t the tightest, and I’ve adjusted it more than once. It holds on a hill, but would like few less clicks. When I adjusted it I noted the cables were about 4mm diameter -you’d need a massive left arm (or a lot of corrosion) to break it. Yeah, I have no idea how it's happened. Must've been very stretched or there's something else that's caused it :blink:
Thanks man, definitely some stuff to try there - appreciate that!
 
I think you’ve bought a bad one mate. There aren’t widespread reports of HP fuel pump failures on these and as Matt suggested I think your car might have been misfuelled in the recent past, possibly why it was up for sale even?

I’ve actually just bought a Milano Red ES GT Auto this weekend for myself. 155k on the clock and engine is as sweet as a nut.
 
Hi.

Ref item 9, In the hot summer temperatures the trim started to lift, it had been recalled under the recall for the trim. Later at some point had a windscreen replaced and the fitters snapped the fitting of the windscreen trim and just bodged the fitting back on. Anyway Honda have offered to cover the cost of replacement just short of £500.
 
smokingman said:
Hi. Ref item 9, In the hot summer temperatures the trim started to lift, it had been recalled under the recall for the trim. Later at some point had a windscreen replaced and the fitters snapped the fitting of the windscreen trim and just bodged the fitting back on. Anyway Honda have offered to cover the cost of replacement just short of £500.
That's worth knowing. If the above mentioned idea doesn't work I'll take it down.
 
Hello,

1&2 my friends DTEC accord also have had failure on HPFP. It stalled engine during trip. Error showed up saying that fuel pressure is low. He gave me HPFP, i dissembled it (have photos if interested), and noticed that previous owner mixed fuel with water (or petrol), that HPFP piston rollers was very worn out.
Although, fuel injectors weren't damaged, so just HPFP changed and good.

3 i also changed both ball joints during the car inspection. I think it is normal wear and tear depending on what type of roads are you driving. It should not be the case of poor honda quality. imho.
4 i also have had sticking pedal clutch, mechanics told me that clutches diaphragm spring is failed, so i have had to buy new clutch kit. Bought TYPE S clutch kit on my standard 110kw dtec.
5 densest occur.
6 i have failed air-con, but fix was cheap, local AC specialist tested my accord and told me, that relay failed. it changed in a seconds and air-con again working perfectly. First thing they checked - R134a/freon quantity, they see a high pressure in pipes - so no need to re-gas, then they checked electrical circuits and found faulty relay.
7 does not occured
8 my some friends with accords with halogen bulbs also mumbled about blown bulbs, while i have HIDs, and after 3 years - none faulty. Even i recently drive with fobs - bulbs are okay. Never changed.
9 free fix from recall at honda dealer.
10 same story, not snapped but adjusted several times, be cause its not tight enough. Even now it has ~3cm free play, but after 8 clicks - its locks my wheel in hill.
 
Seems like a very bad luck... but "one lady owner" imo usually means drive until it breaks...
 
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