cellio: (sleepy-cat)
Monica ([personal profile] cellio) wrote2011-08-30 08:27 pm
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that was premature

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. :-(