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Honda has been ignoring complaints about a defective engine starter, according to the plaintiff in a recent class action lawsuit.
Plaintiff Joel Merkin says the Honda engine starter in certain recent model years of Honda Accords and Crosstours is defective in a way that causes the starter and battery to fail. Once that happens, the vehicle’s engine will not start, potentially leaving drivers and passengers stranded, Merkin claims.
The engine starter is an electric motor that gets the car’s engine spinning when the driver turns the ignition key, until the engine starts and keeps running on its own.
Merkin claims the defendants have known about this Honda engine starter defect for at least four years. Owners have been filing complaints with Honda about the alleged defect, and the company itself has published internal technical bulletins addressing the problem, he claims.
According to this Honda engine starter class action lawsuit, Honda has been refusing owner requests to remedy the engine starter defect under the affected vehicles’ warranties. Merkin says Honda has dismissed warranty claims for this defect by attributing the problems to wear, owner misuse, improper maintenance or lack of maintenance.
When Honda has bothered to fix the defect, Merkin alleges, the company has only replaced the Honda engine starter with a similarly defective starter.
Despite Honda’s alleged knowledge of the defect and the asserted coverage under the manufacturer’s warranty, Merkin says the company has not “recalled the Class Vehicles to repair the Starter Defect, offered its customers a suitable repair or replacement free of charge, or offered to reimburse its customers who have incurred out of pocket expenses to repair the defect.”
Merkin himself is the owner of a pre-owned 2013 Honda Accord. He says that in May 2016, his Accord would fail to start about once a week. The problem got progressively worse, he says, until the vehicle would fail to start five to six times per day.
A local Honda dealer told Merkin the car was no longer under warranty. Merkin had the problem fixed at an out-of- pocket cost of about $200, he claims.
Merkin is proposing to represent a statewide plaintiff Class consisting of all persons in New Jersey who are current or former owners of one of the listed vehicles equipped with the allegedly defective Honda engine starter. He lists these vehicles as the Honda Accord from model years 2013 to 2015 and the Honda Crosstour from model years 2013 to 2015.
He is asking the court to certify his proposed Class and appoint him as Class representative. He seeks a court order requiring Honda to repair, recall or replace the Honda engine starter in affected vehicles. He also seeks an award of damages with pre- and post-judgment interest and reimbursement of court costs and attorneys’ fees.
Merkin’s attorneys are Matthew D. Schelkopf, Joseph G. Sauder and Joseph B. Kenney of McCune Wright Arevalo LLP.
The Honda Engine Starter Defect Class Action Lawsuit is Joel Merkin v. Honda North America Inc., et al., Case No. 3:17-cv-03625, in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.
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451 thoughts onHonda Class Action Says Engine Starter Defect Merits Warranty Coverage
If any class action in NY, or nationwide, I would be glad to join.
I am in NY/ Nassau county. Sept 2013, I bought my 2013 Honda Accord from Honda dealership Manhasset Honda (now Advantage Honda). Dec 2014 will not start and had it towed to Manhasset Honda, they said issue was battery issue, and installed a new Honda battery. Feb 2015 will not start again. Towed again to Manhasset Honda and Mgr keeps accusing me of using incorrect remote key to start the car despite me telling her I have no key other than what Manhasset Honda gave me when I bought the car. They also said issue is due to the car had low mileage (under 15000). I never heard of such an issue with my 20+ years of driving Toyotas.
Tried with no success to get the Sales Director and Dealership director of Manhasset Honda dealership to assist. They said their responsibility is Sales and not Service. Due to that type of response, they have lost me as a customer and I would never ever refer anyone to do any business with that dealership….Advantage Honda at Manhasset, NY.
This time Manhasset Honda kept the car for 1 Week to duplicate the problem. They returned it to me and advised they were unable to duplicate and no trouble found. Car will not start again Oct 2016.
This time Honda said it will cost me as I am out of warranty. Had the car towed to a private mechanic and he told me he had many clients with exact issue of bad starter, and this is a known issue with Honda Accord 2013, but unfortunately Honda Corp is not owning the issue and customers end up paying out of pocket for the starter replacement.
Parts and labor costed me approx $750 not counting previous towing costs, inconvenience and frustrations since Dec 2014.
Will be selling my
We purchase a 2014 Honda Accord Sport with 20, 00 miles and I have the same issue. At first we thought something was wrong with our key. But now its every other day that the car will not start. Please keep me updated
I just had to replace my starter on my 2013 Honda Accord. 58,000 miles on it. It cost $659 and that was with a 10% discount. Do I have any options regarding the class action lawsuit?
I have a 2013 Honda Accord exl an I am having the same issues. I would like some help with this matter as it was expensive to fix. Please keep me informed with any info regarding this case. I am a NC resident as well.
My 2014 honda accord sport starts to having the same issue now. I have to try 5,6 times to start the engine once a week. My car has about 41,000 miles now. I
Same problem with 2013 honda accord v6 ex. I brought into dealership for servicing several times while under warranty and they told me they could not find the issue. Of course now that it was out of warranty they offer a fix for 800 dollars
My 2014 Crosstour also has this problem. I am in possession of the service bulletin 16-003 dated 11 August 2017. I purchased this vehicle as a certified Honda. I had the starter replaced the first time, under warranty, in January 2017. The problem began again to appear about 30 days following this ineffective repair. I have contacted dealers, who say they will not warranty the replacement due to being “out of time” on the assembly warranty and with Honda Customer Service who has told me the same thing. In addition, only when I contacted the 800-999-1009 customer service group did I learn that I have been operating this unit, with no notice to me, with an airbag safety recall with passengers in my car for nearly two years. Their response to me was that the company probably sent the recall notice to the original owner, however it is so very interesting that their 800 customer service number could identify me by my phone number and correlate my phone number to the car that I own. Honda would not commit to a cost free diagnosis of the problem and would only say they would take a look once their dealer completed that potential cost containing diagnosis, but that the repair would under no circumstances be complete at no cost to me.
I have driven Honda’s since 1989.I now own a 2013 EXL V6. In 2016 I experienced the same issues were the car would fail to start about once/twice and week, then progressed to daily any time the motor was turned off. As of today, I am on my third starter. I refuse to replace the it with another defective OEM Honda starter at a cost of $800. Honda no longer stands behind their products.
2014 Honda Accord EX-L owner, purchased certified pre-owned on May 4th of 2017 which included a 1 year limited warranty, that has expired sadly and Honda customer service said there was nothing they could do about the $900 repair cost I got quoted from Keyes Honda. This is completely unacceptable.
It started as a very infrequent non-start which I attributed to user error, maybe I didn’t have the brake pedal pressed enough. They it happened more and more and could not be rationalized any longer. Pressed the button, lights lit up ruling out the battery and just heard clicks. It got so bad I was pressing and cursing in a darkened parking structure for a half hour before I decided to bring it in.
My previous car was a 1999 Honda Accord I owned from 2004 until I purchased this one. It had 166K miles and no starter issues EVER. Now I’m having a starter issue on a car with <29K miles?! I get that technology has advanced and the inner workings are more sophisticated and sure, the cost will be higher to accommodate for that inflation in both parts and labor I suppose, but these parts should not break so soon in a vehicle's lifespan. These parts should be covered in their own warranty!
The woman told me the low mileage was part of the problem, that not driving enough caused the starter to not get enough of a charge and thus caused it to fail. That doesn't sound quite right, but I know very little about these systems. I am depressed and disappointed not about the cost so much, although that is quite an unexpected hit to take right after the holidays, but I am bummed because Honda was once synonymous with reliability, with fairness, with affordability, and all that has changed with the flip of a switch, or should I say press of a button ;)
I have 2014 Honda Accord and one of them started having issues with starting from first couple of months, we took it to honda dealer (Auto Park Honda, Cary, NC) multiple times but they could not find any issues with it, even though it will fail to start couple of times a month, finally I got tired and asked dealer to check it again and their recommendation was to reboot the computer (89 usd) and replace the battery (300 usd), that did not fix the issue, last year we had a call from dealer that its the starter and it would be 900 usd, I called Honda USA and told them about this as a defective piece so finally they agree to pay 750 usd off of 900 usd that dealer would charge. last week I started seeing similar symptom again with new battery and new starter, so just got the appt for next week. No more confident about Honda’s quality.