So last Thursday I went to get my car from the lot at work and the parking attendant told me it wouldn't start. I was shocked by this, and didn't believe him. I checked it out and it was 100% dead, no crank or anything. I got a jump from a friend and no help there. In a last ditch effort I gave it one hard crank and it got going.

Once it started I had the following lights lit up: IMA, Check Engine, Oil Light, battery light and the "D" light was flashing.

Luckily Honda is only 2 miles from work so i took it there. The told me that they are showing a "wire break code" but can't find any wire breaks. Honda sent out a new power train module to try and clear the code, nothing. SO they sent out a new IMA module, nothing.

It has been a week and they told me at this point it is just going to be process of elimination to figure this out.

Has anyone else experienced this, or am I the first?

 

Who knows what those parking attendants do with your car after you hand them the keys.

Sorry to hear the bad news. Hopefully its a quick and inexpensive fix.

 

I've only had a situation somewhat related on a former leased car. An A6 from 02-04 about 1 year in developed a multitude of problems all at once. Oddly enough all on the same morning too. Failure of interior electronics, lights, engine seemed underpowered and slow to respond.

Local megadealer wasn't the best place to bring it in hindsight... the more car divisions they have the more backed up service tends to get it seems. I was told the car would be there overnight, It ended up as a 4 day affair, having to order new interior chip for electronics. I was told I was getting misfires from the cyclinders, odd for a 16,000 mile lease. And the electrical failure was a cascade resulting from a defect in one component, I guess wonderful VW/Audi reliability at its best. I was offered no real explanation as to why they all had failures at once.

Anyway back to topic, the reason for 4 days was it wasn't untill the second day they determined why the electronics has failed, I was informed they run variety of tests to determine where it started so they could fix and prevent a future problem.

Moral is the more advanced cars go with computers controlling functions the more chance something can go wrong, with no clear "oh you have a broken this or that..." Also take into account your dealership likely has little experience with hybrid models. Elimination sounds about right if they have no clue what happened and don't want to sound too dumb!

Only good part about my experience was I got a nice red A4 to drive for a few days! Also I learned never to coast into an Audi lot again. Ever.

 

I have a similar story with an 2001 Audi A4. In the span of a month I had to spend $5500 on two different types of problems, all engine related. This doesnt inlude the additional $1000 I had to pay 4 months earlier to replace a front HID headlight housing. All work was done at the dealer I purchased it from. And I was 5,000 miles past warranty.

I finally gave up and traded in that nightmare for my awesome new Civic Hybrid.

I'll never set foot on another Audi Dealership again.

Everybody talks about German engineering, but I'll take Japanese automotive engineering any day of the week.

 

The more electrical devices, more wires, more gears, etc that a car has, the more likely something will go wrong along the line. I *was* big into electronics and computers in my younger days (about 8-10 years ago) and no matter how much the evolve, they obviously will never be perfect. That was the main reasoning for my buying the extended warranty: it covered electrical components.

Also, the more electrical/computerized it is, the more expensive it is to repair. Consider it this way:

You have power windows vs. old style roll bar windows. The motor breaks and you have to get a new window regulator. You now have to take the car to the shop (unless you are a repair technician, but still a headache to work inside those doors) and you are out your car for probably 2-3 days. Now, you have to pay for a rental car (if lucky $25/day). The part itself will be a rip off (it's a small freaking motor) because the dealership will mark it up close to 50% to make money off you, the unlucky consumer in this case. Then there is the $80/hr labor bill, for something that will easily take them a minimum of 1 hour.

So, you've got $50 for rental, $200 for motor, and for the sake of argument, we'll just use 1 hr labor (you got lucky!) $80. You're already over $300. How do I know this is close? I had both my front regulators & run channels replaced already, under warranty and they showed me the "bill" that Honda gets to cover.

Needless to say, if the old style broke, you'd spend maybe $50 for the part (usually plastic, so pretty cheap) and something like that would take about an hour of YOUR time to replace. I've had to replace a lock in my old Geo Metro and that only took about an hour and I'm no car repair person.

Remember, car modification usually is not too difficult. Most pieces are either welded together, held on with bolts / screws / nuts, or those cheap *** pop rivets that are becoming more popular.

Ok, I'm done rambling, but again, I figure the warranty is worthwhile as it covers the electronics, and as cars evolve more into computers and electronis, a small repair becomes a large, expensive repair.

 

update please.

 

yeah. I was following this story a few months back. What happened?

 

I'm curious as to the outcome as well.

On a side note, I have noticed a problem with my car, since getting the power window regulators replaced. Now the remote start doesn't work! It'll power everything on, but the ICE doesn't kick in. I though "Ok, maybe this is because I turn it off when in AS and that is the problem". Nope, I tried both ways, and it still doesn't work. Another fun one, is that my oil meter reset to 100% when they did the regulators as well. Now I'm at about 6K miles, and figure it's about time to get the oil changed, since I mostly drive in stop-and-go traffic everywhere I drive. It's also getting colder out here, and I'm a spoiled guy that doesn't like to work in the cold! Anyway, I'll be taking it in to get the oil changed (i still have my free one from when I got the car) and to get the remote start fixed.

M.

 

Shenfo must have traded it in?H