Title: courtesy of Barnaby.
As winter progresses the end of January heaves into sight and so do the stresses and expenses of legalising the car, a Honda CR-V (2017). There’s the annual service and the MOT test, hotly pursued by the road tax and insurance. In addition, we have the added jeopardy of any winter appointment – will an overnight dump of snow prevent us from getting onto the public highway? It is 45 miles and 75 minutes to Perth so it is not just up the road, or round the corner. I bought into Honda on the back of a reputation for reliability for this very reason.
The reminder emails started arriving in January, so I made a date for the 4th February. As part of that booking, I reminded them that the steering is still pulling to the left (probably accounts for last year’s MOT failure on unevenly worn tyres) and that the engine light is on.
The steering is turning into a bit of a saga, if not a ditch. I first reported it in 2019 at Perth and in 2020 at Salisbury. Both times I was fobbed off with ‘it is probably the tyres’. It is not the tyres. So this time, they noted that the voltage output from the battery was a bit low and it could be this causing the steering to be a bit off. Could they sell me a new battery? No. I’ll take it home and put it on charge. And then there was the small matter of an engine light. Did I think that that was serious? Not really. Apparently engine light on equals automatic MOT failure. I wonder why nobody cared to mention that three weeks earlier? So that was the first phone call whilst killing time in Perth – ‘your car has failed.’ She mentioned a thing called an air valve but they did not have one in stock. ‘What would you like us to do?’ Giving me more details would be a good idea. After all if it’s a choice between that and MOT failure, well that’s not much choice at all, really. So the second phone call was to say ‘the nearest one is in Antwerp, it won’t be here until next Thursday and it will cost £782 fitted.’ A passing lorry made me think I might have misheard, but no – almost eight hundred pounds for a thing that I have no idea what it does, won’t improve my driving experience, but will turn off an annoying light on my dashboard. ‘Shall we order it?’ Hobson’s choice, whoever he was. ‘And by the way, there is an advisory on worn brake discs and front tyres.’ There’s a surprise. So, yet another trip to Perth, a bill for eight hundred pounds, to see some Honda-trained technicians who are unable to make a car go in a straight line, or turn off a light without fleecing me.
Sometimes things happen and you wonder why? Coincidence, or divine assistance? The first Saturday field service is a combined arrangement and Jules suggested that I might like to work with Barnaby. Of course I would. A part of the chatter was ‘how’s the car going?’ Well… According to the paperwork the faulty component is an AF1 sensor. It turns out that this is cleanable. It is located right at the top in front of the air filter. You remove two screws, lift it out, squirt it with some contact cleaner (got some in the shed), dry it out and refit it. On Saturday afternoon I did all of the above; alas the light did not extinguish. I reported back. Barnaby told me not to worry. ‘I will come over with my machine and delete the error code.’ He did, the light went off, and the car is now legal again (we still had to go back to Honda to prove it). It might be that there is still an underlying problem waiting to reappear but is it really necessary to present me with an ultimatum when a workaround is so simple, even if it does prove to be temporary?
Ah, but then the feedback email arrived from Honda themselves (the stealerships are franchises). They were hoping that I was thoroughly satisfied with my Honda experience. I have not yet responded; satisfied is not the first word that springs to mind! But I did write to the service manager raising certain concerns and disappointments. In particular, if the steering problem is caused by low voltage in 2022, then it was likely caused by low voltage in 2019 and in 2020 when both the vehicle and battery were under warranty. Is he offering to replace the battery under warranty? No, I didn’t think he was. They have now changed their mind. It might be the tracking and alignment. ‘Did you check that, as requested?’ ‘No, you need to go to a specialist alignment centre.’
Quite extraordinary! How hard can it be? I am fairly certain that a chimpanzee-trained technician can probably work out how to make a car go straight. I suppose it comes down to what Honda have trained their guys to do. If it is to sniff out a cash-cow and milk it for every penny, well they’re good at that. What a world: three MOTs, two failures, both avoidable, and a rapidly declining enchantment with Honda. If this is what reliability looks like one dreads to think how it must be with other marques!
In 1973 the Soviets put a robotic rover, Lunokhod 2, on the Moon and it trundled around for forty years without any maintenance whatsoever. Why can't a young, low-mileage earth vehicle pass its annual MOT, even having been molly-coddled for its entire existence? Everything was fine up to and just past the warranty period. Mmmm...
I think ‘Power of Dreams’ is the Honda tag line. I am starting to have annual nightmares. But being on the field ministry and being paired-up with Barnaby was highly serendipitous. Divine intervention? Decide for yourself!
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