Doh! I forgot about the driver's window thing, though that seemed to be a quick flash in the pan. Probably a batch of bad servos there, or maybe a new person on the line without enough training. Think I'm going to roll over 10k miles this week, and apart from a very mild case of the spoiler scuffing (and a very annoying chip in the hood from the quarry I pass on my daily commute), I haven't had any problems with mine. Even doing the oil change myself was pretty easy with a small jack and tripods

Side note: I've switched to a K&N air filter, which has been performing well, and does at least *feel* like it's providing a little more pep when I have to floor the pedal. Still debating on whether to switch in a CAI or SRI intake. I might look at the catback first instead.

 

You floor the pedal?

 

You would too if you had to deal with the 270/315/23 interchange in Columbus. It's the only place I go where hypermile techniques must be thrown out the window in the interest of personal safety.

 

Does VTEC kick in? Is there any power above 4k rpms? How bad do you think it hurts your FE?

I have a horrible start to my commute every morning. I'm only four-five blocks from the Interstate, so my car is NOT warmed up yet on chilly mornings and I have to quickly get over four lanes to make the Insterstate split. I try to not exceed 3.5-4k rpms. What is your experiences with the upper revs?

TIA

 

Amen. That exchange between 4-6:30PM is an absolute nightmare.

 

noflash, I split the inquiry off into a separate thread. Best to keep this one on aat's car.

 

Update:

Decided to go with my original intuition that this is probably a problem car so I'm fighting for a direct replacement on it. So far it is still in the shop. Basically, I drove the car for 3 days and now it has been in the shop for a total of 8 days. Service is replacing the $4,000 hybrid battery pack but I don't have much confidence in the car, this particular car. I'm feeling better about the overall quality of the HCH II, though I'll probably be pretty uber-sensitive about it once I'm finally driving it. Don't know how long that will take...

 

I can understand that. How do you know that the rest of the car is okay if it has this problem to start. Who knows what they guys on the line were smoking when they built it. I would prefer a replacement over a fixed car.

 

Have you contacted Honda Corporate and asked if you could have this replaced?

 

Yep. Just get a new car. You got the very rare lemon. Hybridcars.com is filled with diesel supportors who do and say anything to put down " the threat" of hybrid vehicles; you can't take much over their for fact if negative.

Toyota puts out massive amounts of good quality cars but has poor customer service.

Honda puts out much smaller numbers of cars but will service most complaints until resolved, but they arent much on discount programs to sell the cars they do make. And dont stock the lots with inventory much either.

I dont work for Honda ( haha very funny) and have enjoyed owning the 2006 HCH2 greatly. No problems except the intermittent window regular issue which at some point in the first year I'll get fixed ( after they handle a few more).