Woman takes unique road to sue Honda over mileage

She's lucky she didn't have me as the judge. I'm surprised, doesn't Federal law require that the EPA ratings be listed on the window sticker? Honda ran the Federally mandated test protocols and got a number which they posted as they were required to do. Is there a law which makes that a guarantee which a manufacturer must honor??

I'd love to get my hands on her car.

I wonder if Small Claims awards can be appealed??

 

You seem to be assuming that this case was only about the well trodden issue of advertised EPA rating versus the typical real-world hybrid performance. Any article with more detail (I've read several) says the plaintiff saw *much* worse than expected performance, especially after a software update that meant to prolong hybrid battery life by leaning more on the ICE.

Per the LA Times linked above:

Also per that article, Honda can appeal to the California Superior Court. If not many people opt out of the class action settlement like this plaintiff did, Honda will probably just pay her the $10K and be done with it.

But since Honda has admitted a problem with the battery life on some Civic Hybrid models, why haven't they covered this by warranty or recall? How did it ever come to this?

 

Honda tested and sold the car using one set of battery parameters.They sold and promoted he car based on those parameters. Later, they revised the battery usage/set up which decreased, SIGNIFICANTLY, the mpg. Owners who relied on the original set up but who, later, were forced to accept the new one were screwed. She deserves to win as does anyone else not satisfied with their newly revised, but less fuel thrifty vehicles.

Small claim cases aren't usually a big deal but I'm sure this time, Honda will appeal, forcing a completly new trial in a common pleas court, with attorneys this time!

 

Honda did. Their fix, under warranty, is to reprogram the car to use the battery pack less & the ICE more so that the pack doesn't fail (again) under warranty.

I believe one of the points is that the EPA did not retest the fuel economy of the reprogrammed car.

How would you feel if your 50mpg Prius routinely delivered 30mpg after a trip to the dealer when an ECU was reprogrammed?

 

HCH Proposed Class Action Lawsuit Settlement - Page 2 - CleanMPG Forums
"Although I have a battery recal every single morning, I still get close to 60mpgs or more." - another woman driving a 2006 Civic Hybrid

There's more going on in the lawsuit that we don't know about. And the only way to really find out what's going on is to have the car in the lawsuit test driven someone else who actually DOES get EPA mpg out of another 2006 Civic Hybrid. Wayne Gerdes would be a good candidate and would have the mpg experience to know whether the car is functioning properly. A typical mechanic or factory service rep has no clue.

Lots of people here report that they don't get EPA out of their Prius. As in low 40's for the 50mpg Gen-III, occasionally less (didn't CR get 38mpg?). Possibly because they speed, drive short trips, or operate the accelerator like a light switch. Should they be able to sue Toyota? This decision is a precedent.

 

If she's telling the truth, her driving conditions are so fringe as to be irrelevant, since that's vastly over what most civic hybrid owners get.

 

I just remember that my 2006 Insight got an ECU flash update from Honda that narrowed the range of SOC of the battery, possibly something similar to the update this woman had on her Civic. I debated whether or not to do it and in the end had it done, I think sometime in 2007.

I didn't notice any negative effect on my mpg. EPA on the 2006 Insight is 48c/58h, 52 combined. My Insight's average over 60,000 miles has been 83mpg, ranging from 80-ish in the winter to >100mpg in the summer (10 gallon tanks averaging >100mpg, some highway trips at 110-115mpg). Data is here:
CleanMPG, - Garage An authoritative source on fuel economy and hypermiling
BTW, there are other Insights out there that are getting even higher mpg, so mine is not that extraordinary.

The IMA system behaves differently from Toyota's HSD: if you are driving the IMA efficiently you don't use the IMA battery much, though it is still used.

If ALL 2006 HCH's with the update were down to 30mpg I think we would have heard about it. But unless her car is tested and compared with other 2006 HCH's we'll never know if it was the update, her driving style/conditions, or some mechanical problem with the car.

 

If you're telling the truth.

The guys at cleanmpg drove an HCH around the 48 states and averaged 68mpg. Oh wait, they were probably lying too.

Accusing people of lying on a forum makes the forum rather pointless, doesn't it??

 

From her point of view Honda's modification amounts to a bait-and-switch. She bought a car on the basis of EPA MPG estimates, and now, to fix a battery flaw, its realistically-achievable fuel economy is significantly reduced. If that is indeed the case then she should get some relief. Less than half the price of a new car is not unreasonable. Small claims action is a brilliant move, much more effective for her than to join a class action.

If this small claims route catches on we should expect a Republican effort to "reform" class actions to make it impossible. No company wants to face hundreds or thousands of actions in separate venues. After all corporations are people too, much more special important people than you or I.

 

Corporations are not people. When you sue Honda, you're not suing it's employees or officers. You're suing the Honda entity. If Takanobu Ito steps down, the suit doesn't follow him. The suit stays with Honda.

 

I know you think you made a clever point but I doubt I'm the only one it was lost on. 60 mpg in a civic is vastly beyond its EPA rating and remains an irrelevant anecdote.

Your earlier post hints at a nihilistic view to statistics, insinuating that although maybe she got worse mileage than claims, since you found somebody else who got better mileage, it's a wash and thus her complaint invalid.

Her experience and others' is no more influenced by what somebody at cleanmpg got in their car than my likelihood to win a lottery is influenced by an example of somebody who won one.

 

It isn't clear if she received the software update for the the car.

Did Cleanmpg do the Civic road trip with a before or after updated car? Regardless of the answer, fuel economy results from them, me, or any hypermiler should never be used as a value that the average driver can reach. We are the minority. If somebody wants to prove her car is still good for EPA, then test it at an EPA facility.

 

You undermine your own point. If corporations were not legal entities, essentially people for all legal purposes, then one would have to sue the owners of a company and any suit would follow the owners, even if they stepped down.

It is *because* corporations are "people" that the suit is directed at the corporation and stays with the corporation - just the opposite of your argument.

Tom

 

Reminds me of a point that former GM bigwig Bob Lutz made in an interview on Charlie Rose recently. He said (paraphrasing) that accountants always want to improve the bottom line by cutting costs. But in the real world, unlike in business school, the top line (sales) is not a "given". Customers started noticing the chintzy feel of GM's cars, so GM lost sales as a result of cost cutting.

In other words: screwing the customer turns out to be a short-sighted calculation. Who knew?

 

What Is The Basis For Corporate Personhood? : NPR

 

She is likely telling the truth.

You could also check the most popular MPG databases and see for yourself. Reported averages are quite close to the 2008+ adjusted EPA rating. Still, 60 MPG on a second generation Civic Hybrid is not difficult at all especially for non-hypermiling folks who still know what they purchased.

I've had two second generation HCH's (06 & 07) and they were and remain the best cars I've owned in the last 25 years. Smooth, stable, quiet, and with fuel economy on tap that is not easily trumped when the driver works towards that goal. Because I always work towards lowering my emissions, getting 70+ MPG tanks was routine in a mix of urban & suburban driving (non-winter months).

Curiously and by exactly the same token: No matter how much I try, I cannot get those MPGs on any of my Gen3 Prii. Yes, the 3G Prius will sometimes display 70+ MPG tanks but when you actually calculate it at the pump you get sucker slapped back down to reality by as much as 7% and even more.

Also, the HCH-II's I had were some of the most software updated HCH's in North America and there were 14+ software updates for the HCH-II and I got each and every one of them. Even though some of the updates heavily impacted the IMA system and behavior, my fuel economy never suffered to the levels reported by many HCH owners. It was quite the opposite actually.

The underlying and cruel reality is that if the HCH driver is oblivious to the car's FE potential and features then the car is downright unforgiving and it will smack the owner with mediocre FE as well as a short lived battery pack just to name a couple.


Moral of the story?

For the average public, nothing can beat a Prius (2G & 3G), Period! ... And unless you are truly willing to be a "more eco-minded" driver, choosing an HCH-II will more likely than not lead to a lesser experience.


Cheers;

MSantos

 

So that means since there are "other Prius drivers" who can get 80mpg ... that what .... does it mean anything? or does it mean some folks do better and some do worse ... and out of all that - one can find a statistical average.
see, it's not about what a handfull of folks do ... EPA tests are based of the average results over the same test. In big money litigation, you can be certain that tests will involve multiple Hondas going through the tests ... pre and post flash models.

.

 

Honda is in a lose-lose situation.

They just did not to their homework on the IMA system.

The concept is not flawed, but the batteries should have been able to cool better and the software/firmware protect the pack better.

So Honda has to decide on recalls to limit the bad battery packs vs. complaints on real world fuel economy.

Having said that, I think the plantiff's right foot is probably pretty heavy.

 

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/business&id=8543798