More amazing Honda quality...

"Ash78, voting early and often" (ash78) 08/28/2015 at 10:17 • Filed to: None

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I caught a little flack about my recently posted review of our 2015 Odyssey ( !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! ), which after 9 months of ownership is still disappointing in almost every arena. Now all the unscheduled, minor repairs are cropping up...way too soon, IMO.

You know the black trim that surrounds the upper doors on most cars (where you typically push to close the door...unless you have a convertible or a Subaru). It peels right off the body with minimal force. It looks like simple double-sided tape holding it on. The piece doesn’t even wrap around the b-pillar portion of the door for durability — it just sits loosely adhered to the surface, waiting to fall off. Driver and passenger both.

The interior grab handles ALSO have trim that’s lifting right where your hand pulls on it (where the leather meets the plastic). A bit of a design flaw.

And as of this morning, the head unit runs up to max volume all by itself and can’t be overridden. So the CD, Sirius, radio, and DVD all have to stay dark until this can be fixed.

Next available service appointment is Monday morning, meaning even more time off work, trading cars with the wife, working from home, etc. The fact that warranty covers this is just enough consolation to not be completely pissed off, just mostly pissed off...

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Ash78, voting early and often 08/28/2015 at 10:22

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The Honda Odyssey: almost as many debacles, casualties, disasters, setbacks, rebuilds, and sheep-keeping Cyclopes as the original!

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > Ash78, voting early and often 08/28/2015 at 10:25

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That sucks, should have gotten a Dodge grand Caravan, and saved like $10,000.

SnapUndersteer, Italian Spiderman > Ash78, voting early and often 08/28/2015 at 10:25

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At least the seat belts and the seats rock!

Ash78, voting early and often > RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht 08/28/2015 at 10:26

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Homeric Reference of the Day (HROTD!)

RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht > Highlander-Datsuns are Forever 08/28/2015 at 10:28

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At least with a GC you know that the transmission is scheming against you and you need to take it in for service to prevent that. And the brakes suck on toast. Other than that...

haveacarortwoorthree2 > Ash78, voting early and often 08/28/2015 at 10:28

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Really surprises me as the wife had 3 of these and put a ton of miles on each. Only had one real problem that whole time — one of the side doors stopped automatically opening and closing about 500 miles out of warranty. Honda still fixed for free. Kids are older now so she’s moved on from the minivans, so maybe Honda decided to rest on its laurels with the latest version.

shop-teacher > Ash78, voting early and often 08/28/2015 at 10:29

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That really sucks. I’ve been there with a couple vehicles in the past, and it is maddening. I ended up dumping them both rather quickly at a loss, because life is just too short.

I know the idea of buying XXXX cool but unreliable vehicle with a carmax warranty is a really popular one here, but this perfectly illustrates my opinion why it’s just not worth it. It’s great when you don’t have to shell out your cash for the repairs, but your time is a valuable resource. We can all make more money, but we can’t make more time.

Ash78, voting early and often > haveacarortwoorthree2 08/28/2015 at 10:30

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My theory is that they are progressively cheaping out in order to fluff up the features list and the airbag count. The part that makes me mad about the van is that everything is SO CLOSE to being great, but nothing really is (except the ride, handling, and power).

ttyymmnn > Ash78, voting early and often 08/28/2015 at 10:31

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Sorry to hear you’re having so much trouble. We have an ‘03 and it’s damn near bulletrpoof (knock on wood). After 12 years, little trimmy things are going rotten, plus my kids are damn hard on it. But it’s still a wonderful vehicle.

Ash78, voting early and often > shop-teacher 08/28/2015 at 10:35

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We actually bought a 2011 Carmax model with the warranty, but we took it for a 2nd opinion inspection (highly recommended, since relying on the inspection of the people selling you the car is a conflict of interest). Carmax missed a LOT. There was even masking tape still left on the rear bumper reflectors from a recent re-spray. A poor one, at that.

So we gave it back to Carmax and went the brand new route.

shop-teacher > Ash78, voting early and often 08/28/2015 at 10:39

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Yeah, Carmax’s insistence that they, “Only sell the good ones” is a bunch of lies.

MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig > Ash78, voting early and often 08/28/2015 at 10:40

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This concerns me. My fiancee and I just bought our first new car a few weeks ago, a 2015 Honda Fit. Hopefully these issues are specific to the Odyssey! That really sucks!

Textured Soy Protein > Ash78, voting early and often 08/28/2015 at 10:41

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Next available service appointment is Monday morning, meaning even more time off work, trading cars with the wife, working from home, etc.

Can’t you just show up at the dealer Monday morning before work, drop off the van, get a loaner and head to work?

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > Ash78, voting early and often 08/28/2015 at 10:52

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Holy moly this van is baad. Just from what you’ve posted about it has more quality issues than both of my parent’s pre-2010 GM cars had combined.

Rico > Ash78, voting early and often 08/28/2015 at 10:56

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Flack for what? Pointing out the flaws and subpar build quality for the price? This is what kills me about this site, not every car is great even if it’s been in your family for x amount of years if the car has noticeable issues then it can and should be criticized and critiqued. Not everything is sitting around a campfire singing kumbaya.

For what it’s worth a lot of Honda’s have that issue with the rubber door seals falling off with minimal effort. Same thing with old Toyotas.

Ash78, voting early and often > Textured Soy Protein 08/28/2015 at 11:02

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I can get their courtesy shuttle (which I’ll probably do), but it ends up adding an hour or more of travel time and hassle. None of our 3 Honda dealers has a loaner program...you have to spend Acura money for that, apparently :D

Ash78, voting early and often > Rico 08/28/2015 at 11:10

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Basically. To be fair to my critics, the review probably WAS excessively snarky and negative, but it’s just like any media bias — when everyone else fellates this van as the best thing ever, it’s easier to come at it with a negative tone. Because everyone else is smoking crack.

Rico > Ash78, voting early and often 08/28/2015 at 11:15

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Nah man I thought your review was great, it was fucking hilarious too. You were objective and didn’t hold back even though this is your car and not someone else’s that you were using.

Ash78, voting early and often > Rico 08/28/2015 at 11:18

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Thanks, man, glad you liked it. I honestly feel like the best to TO BE negative is to have actually spent your own money on something (plus it gives you extra moral authority). If I only had the van for a day or two, I probably would have thought it was really good. It’s easy to overlook things.

AM3R shamefully returns > Ash78, voting early and often 08/28/2015 at 11:29

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Just read the review (nice treehouse btw) and was curious, you said you looked at a Durango. What made you go odyssey over Durango?

Ash78, voting early and often > AM3R shamefully returns 08/28/2015 at 11:31

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Forward visibility with the Durango’s long hood was a part of it. Wife hated the dial-a-gear tranny and paddles, too. And it just didn’t have the cargo space.

Dynamically and in terms of materials quality, I was very impressed for a Dodge-branded car.

Rico > Ash78, voting early and often 08/28/2015 at 11:33

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True and playing Devil Advocate here when you have money invested in something it’s also quite easy to overlook it’s flaws and have positive bias towards it.

I love my car but I can quickly point out a few things I don’t like about it, no visible volume level or bar, laggy transmission that I slightly fixed by purchasing something to bypass the drive by wire system, in manual mode it doesn’t shift when I want it to, parking brake that is easily triggered when stepping into the vehicle and the menu system could be more intuitive.

uofime-2 > Ash78, voting early and often 08/28/2015 at 11:36

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If it’s under warranty they should give you a car/pay for a rental. I just dealt with this with a friends CRV, they didn’t want to do it but eventually capitulated.

Motoroso > Ash78, voting early and often 08/28/2015 at 11:42

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This is all incredibly sad. As a former Honda fanboy, I want them to do well. But they suck. They suck badly.

Rico > Textured Soy Protein 08/28/2015 at 13:32

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You’re too used to European car dealerships lol

Textured Soy Protein > Rico 08/28/2015 at 13:38

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That’s how it worked at the Mazda dealer when I had my Miata and Speed 6...

Still have to make an appointment of course, but that Mazda dealer’s service dept was open at 7 am so I could easily drop a car off and get a loaner in time to make it to work. If the car was out of warranty it was like another 20 bucks or something for a loaner but he’s got a 2015 so I can’t imagine that would be the case for him.

The BMW dealer is 2 doors down from my office so I just walk to work. On the one occasion they needed to keep the car overnight I walked back over at around 4 pm to get a loaner.

Rico > Textured Soy Protein 08/28/2015 at 13:46

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Ah I see, well Mazda’s pretty good then! I just had my first loaner experience 2 weeks ago. I literally was out of the door with my loaner in 10 mins, I requested it about 3 weeks ahead since I was planning on taking a week off of work during that time might as well ride around in something different. But I was surprised at how quick I was out the door.

Textured Soy Protein > Rico 08/28/2015 at 14:03

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Pretty much any dealer where I’ve used the service department has had loaners at the ready. If not their own fleet of vehicles they typically partnered with an Enterprise rent-a-car branch. They might charge you for the loaner if you’re not in warranty, but it’s typically less than a normal car rental.

Now that I have 2 cars (135is in warranty, Grand Cherokee not) if the Jeep ever goes to the dealer I just ask them to drop me at home and I take the 135is to work. If that happens during winter and the BMW’s stored, I might take the courtesy shuttle to work in the morning and catch an Uber back to the dealer.

I dunno, this has never been much of a hassle for me.