Complaint Review: Honda Marine

My biggest compliant with Honda is their lack of direct communication with their end users. Honda relies on their Dealers to work with their customers and will only talk to end users if they are not satisfied with the Dealer's actions. Even then, they will not follow up and see if the problems were resolved. Oh, they may send you a nice questionnaire about it, but you will never hear back after sending it in. You will notice in my documents that all their correspondence does not give you a person to contact. Even their Official Response to my Certified Mail had no last name. It was signed by Russell D. and if you call his number, you simply get lost in their automated phone system. You can leave a message, but nobody will call you back. The best way I found to get Honda to talk to you was to tell the Dealer you insist that they have someone from Honda call you.

1. Honda had a September 2005 Recall on a Thermostat gasket that could leak salt water on the Engine. I did not receive notice of this, probably due to Hurricane Katrina.

2. I brought the Engine to Honda's Authorized Service Center on April 22, 2007 (Engine under 5 years old) for repairs due to corrosion. Repairs were made, but the Engine still failed catastrophically shortly afterward on June 10, 2007.

3. The engine failure is a result of a defect in manufacturing. Despite the engine age of about 5 years, the damage is a result of failure within the warranty period that did not manifest itself until later after corrosion took hold.

4. Honda had the opportunity to make repairs at my expense, but was negligent to replace the timing belt and bearings which subsequently failed causing much more expensive damage. In fact, Honda replaced the Alternator, a part which exhibited no problems.

More Details....
The engine did well until around April 2007. One day the Engine would not crank, so I took it in. I advised Ocean Marine that there appeared to be too much corrosion on the engine and I could not figure out why. They said there was a thermostat gasket recall on the engine in September 2005 that was causing saltwater to leak into the engine compartment. Hurricane Katrina struck us on August 29, 2005 and we did not have postal mail for about 3 months so I never received the recall notice. Anyway, I advised that I needed dependability and to please change any parts they deemed necessary to get the engine in good shape. They changed several parts including a $450 alternator which was not giving me any problems. After a $1200 repair bill I took my boat home, launched it, and guess what? It would not crank. That should have been my sign. I called Ocean Marine and talked to the owner who said he happened to be on the water test and it was working then. I kept trying and all of a sudden, it just started working again. Once it cranked it worked as it should, but if I let it cool off, it would take a while to crank. After making a couple close in trips to test it, everything seemed to work until one trip when it failed and would not crank. I discovered a blown fuse, found some wire to jumper it and got home. I replaced the fuse and kept some spares onboard. My Service Manual showed this fuse to feed the fuel pump. Also the problem of having to crank for 30 seconds when it was cold appeared to be cured. I made 3 more trips and the fuse blew on the second trip. Otherwise it was working. Then on a June 10 Charter it broke down. Initially the fuse went out again, so I changed it. We got less than a mile and it went again. This time, as we started to plane off, the engine made some bad noises like something came loose and we were dead in the water. It would turn over, but did not sound right and would not crank. After being towed in and getting her to Ocean Marine, they advised that a timing belt bearing had gone out, bearings shot up into the air breather and down into the cylinders. Of course, I complained that I just had it in their shop for corrosion problems and that they should have changed them at that time. They advised that Honda would buy the $791 of parts needed and I would have to pay the labor that was estimated at $4,000, but could be much higher. My other option was to buy a new Honda for $14,348 and I would get a 5 year warranty and be running in a couple days. I asked about switching to the Mercury Verado, but they wanted an additional $4500 and 3 weeks to change the controls. So reluctantly, I felt cornered and decided to get the new Honda. They assured me all the kinks have been worked out and this engine would do me a good job.

At this point I was not a happy customer. I had an engine that had a factory recall that I was not notified of. I advised Honda to repair the damages due to the defect at my expense. I received the boat back, paid them over $1200, and less than a month later had some serious damage due to their negligence of not replacing the Timing Belt Bearings. Their own documentation advises to change the Timing Belt after 1,000 hours. This engine had 1100 hours on it plus had the corrosion problems. I wrote Honda a certified letter to get Honda's Official Response on this matter. It basically said that I was out of warranty and tough luck. It did not help that I paid an extra $1650 for the extended warranty and never used it. I did not have the extended warranty on the Optimax and Mercury fixed it even though it was technically out of warranty.

Read my whole story at http://hondagrief.com

Mark
Gautier, Mississippi
U.S.A.

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