How Has American Honda Handled Your Front End Creaking Problem?

[56chevydan]

I'm not trying to necessarily start a new post on creaking front ends on our cars, but we did lose a lot of current info on that subject when this site melted down.

My car is currently on sportlines on stock struts. My front end has been creaking since about 26K miles and currently has 46K miles on it.
Here is my question. What feedback can anyone on this forum CURRENTLY give where they have talked to a Honda dealer or American Honda about this creaking issue, and have they been offered any assistance with dealing with the problem?

I took my car to the local dealership this week and showed them a copy of bulletin 05-023, which turns out to be an internal bulletin that they were surprised that I had a copy of. That bulletin stated that the first step to deal with the creaking rack was to first try to adjust it, which I had them do. That cost me $65.00, which they said was a 50/50 cost. If that didn't solve the problem, (which it didn't totally fix), then the dealer was to contact the zone office for goodwill consideration. I got word today that they're offering a 50/50 payment arrangement on a rack replacement.

Does anyone else have any feedback about their experience?

[NovakSI]

I was able to get a complete replacement plus rental at no charge to me, with 60,000 on the car. I bought mine in October of '03 and had the rack replaced in December of '04. I'm fairly talented at getting stuff for free... took a lot of work on my part, with a number of patient conversations with Honda North America. the 50/50 deal they're offering you now may be the best you can get, but it couldn't hurt to try for more.

A few things that helped my cause were the fact that the car was only a year old, I had owned several Hondas prior to purchasing the ep... maybe that's it.

Their goodwill paid off. We now own an '07 Odyssey (bought new) and an '05Accord (bought certified used). Wish I still had my ep :mcry:

[RedSiBaron]

the one dealer i bothered to ask about them just tried to get rid of me, i gave up cuz i didnt want to deal with the headache

[mikebigh]

my rack makes a tiny bit of noise now after 109k, haven't bothered as it's not really bad at all. I never really had that, or the 2nd gear problem, guess I;m lucky.

[Falcon7]

I had it replaced under warranty when it started creaking.

Certified Pre-owned warranty FTW.

[56chevydan]

As an update, I went back into the Honda dealer here Tuesday of this last week and spoke to the service manager again. He told me that American Honda was offering a goodwill offer to fix the problem. American Honda was offering the rack for a warranty price of $897.09 plus 2.6 hours labor which came out to $338.00 for the labor, for a total of $1235.09. That total would be split 50/50 for a total to me of $617.55.

The rack has a msrp of $1067.97. Somehow this offer by Honda just doesn't seem equitable. It really seems that Honda isn't stepping up to the plate to fix a problem that has been documented by many, many others on this forum with the same problem, and is obviously a defect in design.

I also think the Honda internal memo that I have a copy of, first of all acknowledges that there is a problem, and then goes on to address how the problem should be addressed with first an attempt to adjust the rack and then the dealer to call American Honda to ask for goodwill consideration by them to fix it if the adjustment didn't work to correct the problem.

Anyone else have any comments or comments about dealings with a Honda dealer about this problem?

[EP3_5]

Can you post the bulletin, I lost it after a hard drive crash....

[.colin]

they paid for the parts, i paid for labor. didn't bother to look at my paperwork, just took it out for a drive and looked up the TSB #. i was out of my warranty by about 15,000 miles and my suspension was stock.