that was premature

[cellio]

This morning I found my 2008 Honda Fit unable to start. After checking for obvious problems I called AAA. It turned out to be a dead, not just drained, battery; a jump would get it started but it wasn't going to recharge. (The symptoms suggested battery and not starter, but while waiting for AAA I called around to find a place I could have it towed to and repaired today if needed. The nearby Honda dealership was unable to help me with that, but Mark's Auto Repair in Greenfield was happy to oblige.)

Now my car only has 11,000 miles on it, so a dead battery came as something of a surprise to me. I think I replaced the battery in my Mazda (15 years, 75,000 miles) once. Maybe I got a dud, I figured -- but it's out of warranty, so what can you do? I paid Honda to replace it. (Aside: it is a non-standard size, so the AAA guy didn't have one on his truck. I didn't know "normal" cars had unconventional batteries.)

But then I did some Google research, and it turns out that lots of people have had this problem with the 2007 and 2008 Fits. One of them also reported it happening at 11,000 miles. Most of them encountered it while still under warranty, but I wasn't so lucky. (Hey, I cherish my 4.2-mile commute, ok?) But this is clearly a known problem, so I called the service manager at Honda and left a honey-laden message saying that I've been a very happy Honda customer except for this little blip, and I got bitten by a known problem, and is there anything he could do to lessen the sting of that repair bill? Now I wait...

To add insult to injury, today's mail (which arrived after all this happened) contained a 15%-off-service coupon from Honda. :-(

Comments

[rani23.livejournal.com]

Show them the coupon and ask for a refund? It wouldn't hurt to ask?

[cellio]

Definitely. Once I can get a live human. :-)

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Back when my Toyota wagon was newish but no longer under warranty, they told me the second time Part X went bad that it was a known defect and they'd replace it for free. A pity nobody mentioned it the first time ... when they evidently replaced it with the same defective part.

[cellio]

Oy. :-(

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

Sympathies. We just replaced my Mazda Protege last week after 8 years of dealing with a recurring electrical gremlin. It wasn't a known problem, & no one could find it to fix it, but it would every 6-12 months short out & destroy either the battery or the alternator & leave me sitting. (The gremlin moved into other systems as the car aged. We were *very* grateful when it left the car alarm to instead play poltergeist with the audio system.) Trouble was, I couldn't in good conscience sell it, trade it in or give it away -- full disclosure = no sale. It finally had an issue major enough that junking it made sense, & we hope for far fewer surprises from our new vehicle.

Edited for clarity.

[cellio]

Wow, that sounds dire. What did you replace it with?

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

OK, that was weird -- my reply to your *next* post & your reply to my comment just crossed in the ether. About a second after I hit Send, the notification for your comment arrived.

We ended up with a Ford Fusion hybrid. It's bigger than I'm used to or wanted, but somehow it handles amazingly like my sport model Protege. It was also a good bit more than we planned to spend, but it's extremely well designed & gets terrific reviews from every source we could find. Nothing else we tried, hybrid or standard, impressed us anywhere near as much. As Steve put it, "Full-size car deluxe feature set, small car handling, & hybrid MPG."

We liked the Prius, but the amount of covered cargo space (as opposed to the hatchback & folding seats) was way too small. I also really hated the visibility. (The new Prius wagon is coming in October at the earliest.) The Fusion's trunk is very small for a car that size, but only just big enough.

I noticed that all the manufacturers load up the hybrids with standard features that cost extra on regular models -- probably trying to sell more of them in order to meet the federal fleet MPG mandates. If we had bought a regular Fusion plus every option that interested us, the price difference between it & a hybrid would only have been around $1000.

We think the old Protege's gremlin finally moved into a critical system, most likely an oil pump sensor. It was inspected just recently & pronounced to be in good health, but the space of 15 miles it went from perfectly fine to sitting on the beltway with the engine totally seized. RIP.