Honda Sensing Problem
#1
12-20-2018, 07:36 AM
Honda Sensing Problem
I recently purchased a new 2018 Honda Accord Sport. After owning the car for less than two and half weeks with only a little over 600 miles. I started seeing messages in orange letters where my tach is located stating I had a problem with the Adaptive Cruise Control, and two other problems that told me to see a dealer. I took the car into a local dealer early the next morning and dropped it off for them to take a look at. A hour and a half I get a call from the Service department with some bad news. They told me the sensor located near the bottom of the car was damaged and that the warning messages I saw occurred with when it was damaged. I was shocked since I did not hear or feel anything hitting the car before these messages started to appear. The service department representative told me this damage was not covered by the warranty. I requested that he send me pictures of the damage, which he did. I was surprised that there was that kind of damage to the sensor and I was totally unaware of hitting anything with the car while driving down an Interstate highway at night. After looking at the pictures and the size and location of this sensor I did some research on other vehicles within the Honda line including Acuras that have this same system on them as well as competitor vehicles with similar systems. What I found is that the Honda Accord is the only one that has a sensor that is located so close to the ground (it is on 11 inches from the bottom of the sensor to the ground). It is also much larger that any other sensors on Honda products. For example the Acura TLX the sensor is over 20 inches from the ground and is 23% smaller which makes it much less likely to be hit by something on the road. After working in Manufacturing for nearly 30 years, working with Engineers on product designs, I am convinced that the design engineers that designed the grill on the 2018 Honda Accord made a huge design mistake with the size and location of this sensor. I contacted Honda Corporate Customer Service and they basically said because it was damage, it was not their problem and would not admit that this might be a problem with the location of the sensor. I paid the repair and got my car back, but I was not happy with Honda's response. This is the 9th Honda I have owned since 1983 and up to this point was very pleased with their products. I am writing this to see if anyone else has experienced a problem with damage to the sensor in the lower grill of the car and to alert others that this could be a problem if they buy this car. The 2019 Honda Accord has the same design with regards to the location and size of this sensor. This is very disappointing to me, since Honda could have located this much higher in the grill and make it smaller, thus less susceptible to damage from road debri. Also, when did auto designers decide it is okay to eliminate front bumpers on cars. The Accord as well as most of their direct competitors do not have anything that resembles a front bumper. It's basically a large grill make of plastic.
#2
02-19-2024, 07:24 PM
I recently purchased a new 2018 Honda Accord Sport. After owning the car for less than two and half weeks with only a little over 600 miles. I started seeing messages in orange letters where my tach is located stating I had a problem with the Adaptive Cruise Control, and two other problems that told me to see a dealer. I took the car into a local dealer early the next morning and dropped it off for them to take a look at. A hour and a half I get a call from the Service department with some bad news. They told me the sensor located near the bottom of the car was damaged and that the warning messages I saw occurred with when it was damaged. I was shocked since I did not hear or feel anything hitting the car before these messages started to appear. The service department representative told me this damage was not covered by the warranty. I requested that he send me pictures of the damage, which he did. I was surprised that there was that kind of damage to the sensor and I was totally unaware of hitting anything with the car while driving down an Interstate highway at night. After looking at the pictures and the size and location of this sensor I did some research on other vehicles within the Honda line including Acuras that have this same system on them as well as competitor vehicles with similar systems Honda Sensing Fixes Explained. What I found is that the Honda Accord is the only one that has a sensor that is located so close to the ground (it is on 11 inches from the bottom of the sensor to the ground). It is also much larger that any other sensors on Honda products. For example the Acura TLX the sensor is over 20 inches from the ground and is 23% smaller which makes it much less likely to be hit by something on the road. After working in Manufacturing for nearly 30 years, working with Engineers on product designs, I am convinced that the design engineers that designed the grill on the 2018 Honda Accord made a huge design mistake with the size and location of this sensor. I contacted Honda Corporate Customer Service and they basically said because it was damage, it was not their problem and would not admit that this might be a problem with the location of the sensor. I paid the repair and got my car back, but I was not happy with Honda's response. This is the 9th Honda I have owned since 1983 and up to this point was very pleased with their products. I am writing this to see if anyone else has experienced a problem with damage to the sensor in the lower grill of the car and to alert others that this could be a problem if they buy this car. The 2019 Honda Accord has the same design with regards to the location and size of this sensor. This is very disappointing to me, since Honda could have located this much higher in the grill and make it smaller, thus less susceptible to damage from road debri. Also, when did auto designers decide it is okay to eliminate front bumpers on cars. The Accord as well as most of their direct competitors do not have anything that resembles a front bumper. It's basically a large grill make of plastic.
1) Had my first "car decided that it needed to hit the brakes when I thought that was exactly the WRONG thing to do for the situation" last night. It was on a 2 lane highway where speed limit changes from 55 to 65, car ahead in right lane pulling a large trailer at night on wet road only going about 45 with me and another vehicle nearly side by side coming up on the slow mover who is also not completely staying in the lane (trailer wheels on the white line at times but still plenty of lane). I sped up to make sure that I would get past the slow guy in the right lane because I didn't want to be competing with other car who I suspected would also want to pass the sluggish moving vehicle. Just as I'm about to pass the car beeps and the orange rectangle of death comes on and I go from accelerating to decelerating which of course throws off the car that had been near me and assumed I was passing and he could get in the left lane to pass also. The car acted like it was a kid in driver's ed - oh, there's something coming closer to me, I better slam on the brakes without thinking about other cars in the situation. I steered further left (used more of the left shoulder than I'd like to) and continued to accelerate and within a couple of seconds it allowed me to speed up to get around the obstacle. My son had warned me that he turned off his "avoidance" options on his Clarity because of similar situations (he drives in Bay Area traffic regularly, I am out in the sticks 97% of the time). Potentially a big problem/scare.
2) Lane Keeping Assist seems to get confused by highway/freeway off ramps and any time lanes either get added or subtracted to the current roadway. For example, driving along the highway when an off ramp caused the white line on the right side of the road to veer, the car seems to panic for a split second, sometimes with the lane departure light or an LKAS lane figure coming on orange in the heads up display. Where the highway goes from 2 lanes to 3 temporarily (to allow traffic coming in from a left side entrance), there are similar problems both when the lane widens before it is split by a new dotted white line, and then again when they merge further down the road because people entering would have enough time to get up to highway speeds by then. A mid-sized annoyance/scare.
3) Any traffic sign with numbers on it makes the car think that's the current speed limit. "Trucks 55" on a 70 MPH road make the car suggest the limit is 55 for me; "School zone 25 when children present" make it think it's 25 even at 11pm. Obviously a minor inconvenience, but really how hard is it to update software to be checking for these VERY common signs - I get that temporary (e.g. some of the things that are put up in construction zones) and uncommon sign configurations might fool it.
Wondering what y'all have seen/experienced; these and/or other concerns that I may not have yet but should watch for... Thanks.
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