For a total of eight years, Honda has been dealing with a class-action lawsuit alleging it sold cars with defective driver assistance systems. The final lawsuit filed focused on the automatic emergency braking system, and complaints that it was causing cars to stop even though they weren't going to run into anything.
That's obviously inconvenient at best, and potentially crash-inducing at worst. According to CarComplaints.com, the case has been heard, and Honda came out on top. However, we likely haven't heard the last about the company and braking issues.
The Case Focused On Two Vehicles: CR-V And Accord
As CarComplaints.com notes, the initial class-action lawsuit against Honda was filed way back in 2018. Over the years, it was updated, and other classes were added. The finalized suit came together in 2023 and included classes from Arizona, California, Florida, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, and Ohio. It also addressed the aforementioned phantom braking on two specific models of Honda: the 2018 to 2020 Accord and 2017 to 2019 CR-V.
The suit highlighted complaints to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), including those that were related to collisions and injuries. It also touched on multiple technical service bulletins issued by Honda to try to correct issues customers were bringing up. When the case was heard, CarComplaints.com reported that the jury found in favor of Honda, with the company bringing up that it had published warnings that the system has limits, and that it's possible to deactivate the system if needed.
NHTSA Is Investigating Honda
As the lawsuit mentioned, NHTSA has been receiving complaints about issues with Honda's collision prevention system. In 2022, the organization had received nearly 300 complaints, and it was enough that it requested internal information from Honda about issues. Two years later, NHTSA opened an official investigation into the issue, which is currently ongoing.
Source: CarComplaints.com, United States District Court Central District of California, NHTSA
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This article originally appeared on CarBuzz and is republished here with permission.
