Japanese Reliability? Consumer Reports Uncovers Stalling Issue With 2017-2018 Honda CR-V

Kurt Witzig first noticed something wrong with his CR-V—Honda’s top-selling vehicle in the U.S.—when it was just 4 months old. On a cold January day earlier this year, just a few miles from Witzig’s home in Duluth, Minn., his SUV stalled while he was out doing morning errands. Witzig got the car restarted but couldn’t coax it over 20 mph. So he steered the limping SUV to the nearest Honda dealer.

After two weeks of being unable to diagnose the problem, the dealer finally determined that gas was improperly leaking into the oil, Witzig said, though the mechanic still wasn’t sure how to fix the problem. After learning that other CR-V owners with the same problem ended up getting the oil changed, Witzig asked for the same stopgap solution. And finally, frustrated by what he saw as Honda’s inability or unwillingness to fix a potentially serious engine problem, Witzig traded in his 5-month-old CR-V for a Toyota RAV4, taking a $7,000 loss in the process.

It turns out that Witzig isn’t alone. He’s one of nine Consumer Reports members who have reported this problem to us this year...

**Special thanks to USNA1999 for the lead on this story.

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MDarringer - 10/7/2018 10:26:20 PM

-1 Boost

CR uncovers public knowledge? Whoa!

TomM - 10/8/2018 12:27:50 AM

-8 Boost

Japanese "reliability" is actually a misnomer.
THere was a time when mass market cars simply did not have all the gadgets available - for instance Power Windows were likely not to be found unti Olds or Buick - at least. But the mass market cars of that time - had crank windows - an AM mono radio - went forward and backwards - and pretty much ran forever.
When the manufacturers added the higher line options to the mass market cars - they began to have the same reliability issues that all high end cars always had - and Japan had Small sedans with basic 4 cylinder engines - crank windows - and AM/FM mono radio - manual 3 or 4 seed trans - no power seats or windows - but the went forward and backwards and ran forever.

THAT was the basis for Japanese reliability. However - once the japanese had to add those options to their cars - they lost their reliability to the same problems that cost the earlier american cars - more complexity costs in reliability.

Today- the difference in reliability between Domestic product and foreign product is - with only a few exceptions - really negligible. Properly maintained - and even not so - the current automatic transmission failure rate has fallen to less than 5% - meaning that 95% of all automatic transmissions go from dealership to Junkyard most having never been even serviced. In a properly operating automatic transmission - one can STILL read the parts number stamped on top of the friction clutches - after 15 or more years.

Today - the biggest problems cars have are software problems - cause most warranty repairs. Mechanical problems are usually rare. In this case - I would be interested in what went wrong. But it remains unusual.

MDarringer - 10/8/2018 8:12:53 AM

0 Boost

This stalling issue was announced by Honda long before CR "found" it.