Woman takes unique road to sue Honda over mileage

I think you're missing the point (see post #10). The fact that the car CAN do higher mpg's ... versus the fact that once the batteries are over 100k miles ... 120K miles etc. MANY of those traction packs are going weak, causing range/mpg to suffer heavily. New packs are re-programmed to use less energy ... leaving the ICE to make up the difference ... leaving lower mpg's ... much lower than the epa ratings. Therein lies the rub.

 

The impression I got from The L.A. Times coverage of this story is that this isn't just a quibble over the EPA estimate vs. real-world mpg. She's getting 30 mpg possibly due to battery failure:

If the battery has failed early it would make sense that she'd get ICE-only mpg. But if that were the case I can't see Honda not handling it through warranty/recall.

The L.A. Times leaves out the fact that this claimant is also an ex-lawyer, so I'm going to wait for more facts before I let this case erode my esteem for Honda. But my ears are sure perked up....

 

It's Tuesday night. Where's the verdict posted?

From what I've read Honda owners have a legitimate gripe over the design & use of the battery pack & Honda's response. To get the economy Honda uses the battery aggressively so it degrades & fails earlier. Their warranty response is to reprogram the computer to rely on the ICE more thus cutting FE. When Honda's not paying for the repair owners are rebuilding the battery with Toyota cells.

If auto manufacturers were sued over every poor design GM & Chrysler would be bankrupt.

Once a lawyer always a lawyer? Can Honda have legal representation because she practiced law before?

Going in front of a judge is always a crapshoot. She may win the case but not amount she was expecting. The max may be $10000 but the judge could rule she's only entitled to a replacement battery.

 

Note that the most 'realistic' EPA numbers are from the 2008 label formula, significantly downgraded compared to previous years. The HCH in question is a 2006, back when the EPA was still using the old over-optimistic formula still used in Canada.

 

So the HV batteries are failing early in HCH's causing Honda to reprogram the car to rely on them less but at the expense of fuel economy?

How is this different to the Prius gen3 which must be filled with 0w20 oil to get the mpg's quoted (which are attainable)? A big problem in the UK (and maybe the US?) is cheapskate dealers filling the gen3 with 5w30 oil to save their bottom line but at the customers expense who will then get poor mpg's. I know when my car was filled with it once by accident I couldn't get over 55mpg UK (45 mpg US) however hard I tried.

How many gen3/2010 Prius owners out there are getting poor mpg's because of this? Toyota say there is nothing wrong with using 5w30 (other than it bombs your mpg's) so their dealers aren't doing anything wrong. BUT if the car was to be officially tested using 5w30 then it wouldn't get the great mpg's its famous for.

Is this not similar to the Honda HCH case? A manufacturer modification/update causes poorer mpg's than originally tested.

 

It don't find it the same GC. You can always go somewhere else and make certain 0w-20 oil is used. Once your (replacement) battery ECU is reprogrammed, you're pretty much hosed.

 

It's small claims court. She'll only need to fork out $75 to file suit for $10,000 that she's asking. Since it's a small claims court, no lawyers can get involved from either side. That means Honda will have to send a none barred representative to represent Honda. Since she herself was a laywer 10 years ago, I'm sure she'll do just fine. All she has to do is prove to the judge that monetary damages have been done. She can easily do this by showing to the court the mileage that she's been getting and Honda's mileage claim on brochure. A simple calculation to determine the damage.
She has nothing to do lose either way. If she lost the small claims court, she lost out $75 filing fee. If she wins, she'll get more than the class action suit would have offered.
Some news interviews with Heather Peters at www.DontSettleWithHonda.org

 

Agreed. It's the same as if the maker used lean burn to get high mpg's, but realized years later the engine materials wasn't up to handling the higher heat. So they turn the lean burn off, and the fuel economy drops. (Comparing the Civic VX federal and Carb models can show that difference)

An actual real world case would be GM's first released cylinder deactivation tech. To fix it's problems usually meant turning off the deactivation. How did GM handle that? Did any owners take legal recourse?

 

Yeah, that website doesn't look like it belongs to an a ambulance chaser... We all take a risk buying a hybrid, and unless we sign some guarantee that states that mpg will be no less than x or that battery life will not deteriorate, the joke is on us. She could probably recover more money just selling the car in question. I can see it being a concern if it involves a safety issue - like my 2006 civic with the sunvisor that broke, and had to be replaced...

 

People buy hybrids for gas mileage. Honda's reprogramming the car to rely less on the battery, essentially, changed it to a conventional car, losing most of the hybrid benefits for which it was purchased. This would be similar to having purchased a convertable and then having the top welded in place. Or, purchasing a station wagon for the cargo space but then having the manufacturer make a "repair" that made it no longer possible to fold the seatbacks.

I laughed when I first heard of this suit, but after having learned a few more details, I think she has a valid argument. In my opinion, she should win!

 

Lots of jumping to conclusions here and throughout this thread, from people more familiar with the Prius system than the Honda IMA:
(1) Honda's reprogramming reduced the range of SOC of the battery to something closer to the range that the Prius uses. Nothing sinister. My Insight-I was reprogrammed in 2007 or 2008 and there was little or no drop in mpg: I still get tanks at close to 100mpg in the summer, 80mpg in the winter, just as before.
(2) Unlike the Prius system, Honda's IMA gives better mpg's if one REDUCES the use of the battery, avoiding assist and limiting battery use to restarts after autostop, ICE balancing, etc. A weakness of the IMA system is that using it for assists inflicts a mpg penalty later when regen is needed. The Prius system handles this better. I think the IMA system could be improved by adding a clutch between the IMA motor and the ICE.
(3) I seriously doubt that a dead IMA battery would drop the mpg to 31.
But hopefully Honda (both dealer and factory service rep) checked over her car thoroughly and determined whether the IMA battery was working and whether there were other codes/faults.
(4) Once the car is in spec, it should be driven by someone else, as I said before. We know that there are people driving Gen 3 Prii who complain here about mpg's in the 30's (Consumer Reports got 38mpg, right?) and others get mid 60's, hypermilers even more. Results on both sides of the EPA rating of 50mpg. Hardly surprising that the same spread applies for the HCH, this woman and the others suing Honda were at the low end of the spectrum.

 

Her demand for $10,00 raises some questions:
Assuming gas price of $3.50/gallon, 30mpg would mean gas cost of 11.7 cents a mile whereas 50mpg would mean 5 cents per mile, a difference of 6.7 cents per mile.
$10,000 would correspond to just under 150,000 miles.

Soo has she driven this distance at 30mpg, or is this anticipated future mileage? Claiming future damages might be a problem??

Has she owned the car since new (2006) and gotten 30mpg that whole time, or did her mpg recently drop? Or did she buy it used? If she has been gotten 30mpg for the past 5-6 years, why has it taken her so long to do something about it? If the mpg dropped only recently, claiming the difference in gas costs for the entire timeframe would be unreasonable.

The LA Times article is typical automotive "journalism", long on speculation and implications and short on facts.

 

How will the lady prove the low mpg is from a flaw and not her driving conditions or habits ?

Where does the EPA promise that MPG will not degrade over time ?

Lastly, it is past time Merkins understand that the "EPA mpg" is an average value, while real life is a bell curve.

As someone earlier implied, this is a lawyer looking for PR.

 

Not sure about 06 Civic Hybrid, but for several versions of IMA, Honda had EPA mileage tested with one version of firmware, then they updated the firmware to make the hybrid battery usage more restrictive, corresponding to less assist, and lower MPG. I think this was a particular problem for the first gen Accord Hybrid.

I hope she wins.

 

She'll probably use whatever facts lent merit to the existing settlement against Honda in the class action lawsuit that won $8.5M for the lawyers and a pittance (like $100) for each car owner.

For the general interest press, the big story is the novelty of consumers flash-mobbing the small claims courts out of dissatisfaction with a class action victory against a goliath corporation. For hybrid enthusiasts, we want the facts over whether Honda had a technical problem with our favorite technology and if so whether they treated their customers appropriately.

Myself, I have yet to read anything that either proves or debunks the merits of that original class action suit against Honda. I hope the fact-based reporting is out there to clear this up.

 

ha ha ha when WILL people learn that the only people who ever win are the lawyers?

6-12 months of hassle in their lives to gain what, $100? ha ha ha ha suckers.

 

Honestly folks - she did this because the settlement to the class action suit was a complete farce - the lawyers walk away with millions and the owners get a coupon for $'s off another Honda and $100. Then add in the software update to save Honda from battery claims in the future that also killed mileage. Even here in America where crazy/stupid lawsuits and settlements are the norm this is just over the top.

The article mentions that she was a practicing lawyer in the past - who wants to bet that her kids have grown up and she is thinking about getting back into the workforce?