This is novel. A woman who is upset with Honda over lack of promised gas mileage on her HondaCivic Hybrid. It seems as the battery aged, the mileage went from the EPA sanctioned 51mpg highway sticker value to about 30. Honda ignored her complaint, and now she has a real chance of winning a landmark case in small claims court and Honda is taking a PR hit as the issue goes viral. A video report follows below.
Civic Hybrid owner sues Honda in small-claims court for poor gas mileage
By Linda Deutsch, Associated Press
TORRANCE — A woman who expected her Civic Hybrid to be her dream car wants Honda to pay for not delivering the 50 mpg it promised.
But rather than joining other owners in a class-action lawsuit, Heather Peters is going solo against the automaker in small-claims court, an unusual move that could offer a bigger payout. And if successful, it could open the door to a flood of similar lawsuits.
…
Peters, a former lawyer, says that as her vehicle’s battery deteriorated, it got only 30 mpg.
When Honda ignored her complaints, she filed legal papers seeking reimbursement for her trouble and the extra money she spent on gas. The suit could cost the company up to $10,000.
If other Civic owners follow her lead, she estimates Honda could be forced to pay as much as $2 billion in damages. No high-priced lawyers are involved, and the process is streamlined.
“I would not be surprised if she won,” said Richard Cupp Jr., who teaches product-liability law at Pepperdine University. “The judge will have a lot of discretion, and the evidentiary standards are relaxed in small-claims court.”
…
Peters opted out of a series of class-action lawsuits filed on behalf of Honda hybrid owners when she saw a proposed settlement would give plaintiffs no more than $200 cash and a rebate of $500 or $1,000 to purchase a new Honda.
The settlement would give trial lawyers $8.5 million, Peters said.
“I was shocked,” she said. “I wrote to Honda and said I would take $7,500, which was then the limit on small-claims in California. It is going up to $10,000 in 2012.”
…
She said she also offered to trade her hybrid for a comparable car with a manual transmission, the only thing she trusted at that point.
“I wrote the letter and I said, ‘If you don’t respond, I will file a suit in small-claims court.’ I gave them my phone number,” she said. “They never called.”
Here’s the video new report from AP:
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JEM says:
January 5, 2012 at 12:02 pm
I own a 2010 VW Jetta TDI in which the sticker said 30mpg city and 42mpg highway. Consumer Reports said the average MPG would be 34. I have had the car 17 months and my worst avg on a tank was 43mpg and the best was 51mpg. I did a 330 mile trip loaded with 4 people and trunk full of stuff (ever see the large trunk a Jetta has?) and averaged 47mpg on that trip (still had more than 1/2 a tank of Diesel left).
Oh this car has leather, Sat Radio, Sunroof, all the goodies and cost me $24k brand new. It is larger and more fun to drive than either the Prius or Civic.
This is eventually going to kill the hybrid. For efficency-eurodeisel,,,,
What would Judge Judy make of it?
My Saturn twin-cam got 39 mpg in mountain driving on several occasions, and once 40 (may have been a slight over-fill involved, so I don’t count it.) The EPA sticker claimed only 34 mpg, so I’ve never had any complaints. I consider buying a hybrid or all-electric an act of extreme foolishness. A friend recently bought a “Smart” Car, a vehicle that I shudder to look at. Well, someone plowed into the back of it with a piece of Detroit iron two weeks ago. The Tridion steel safety shell held up very well–better, in fact, than my friend, who is still smarting…er, I mean, still in pain. Sorry.
I have a Honda Civic Hybrid.
I just got the class action papers the other day.
Took it for service a few weeks ago.
The Honda dealer wanted to sell me a new battery but it actually isn’t bad. Yet.
I can make it get 50 mpg. The car has 105,000 miles on it.
Even my kid can squeeze 40-45 mpg out, and always comes home with the battery well charged because her friends live up the hill. Down the hill completely charges the battery.
Of course keeping it well charged not put away dead is important.
Current tank was at 280 miles with just a hair less than half a tank last time I looked.
I was not that thrilled with the computer update they did, but it didn’t screw it up badly.
I might worry about the battery more if we lived in mountainous country, but I drove it three hard highway w/ passengers, trips last week and it was fine.
When the time comes, we will just get a new battery or new cells from a third party dealer.
I worry more about the CVT. That needed service, and they said it needs plugs which are very fancy and there are eight of them.
Fact is though, at 105k you have to get out of the car to hear if it is running.
It is a very nice little car.
You have to actually play the Hybrid car and pay some attention to it.
According to the Class action papers, there IS something extra wrong with the ’06’s
England calling.
My L registered (August 1993) Renault 19 Diesel regularly gave me over 45 miles per gallon no matter how or where I drove it. It started every time in last winter’s freeze and it died after being rear-ended at 4:30pm on 31st December 2010 at a stop light by a drunk driver. My car had over 140,000 miles on it and all I ever did was change the tyres, oil, oil filter and windscreen wipers. It never had anything else done to it.
Cheapest car to run that I’ve ever owned.
That’s December 2011, BTW.
I still sign my cheques with the wrong date!
Oh, excreta!
I WAS right the first time!
Douglas DC says:
January 5, 2012 at 3:41 pm
“This is eventually going to kill the hybrid. For efficency-eurodeisel,,,,”
Well, some people here have praised the efficiency of their VW’s and I drive one as well. While VW is famous for their thrifty Diesels, they also build Hybrids now, and by now I haven’t heard that they ran into the same kind of trouble as Honda. Maybe Honda just didn’t have such a smart battery management system, that can already make all the difference.
You DO get a lot of efficiency from a hybrid. And why not combine a Turbodiesel with a Hybrid, creating an efficiency double-whopper?
Oh. VW already had that idea. The Up! Diesel Hybrid, –
2.4 l/100km = 98.0060764 miles per gallon
http://www.focus.de/auto/neuheiten/studie/vw-up-lite-der-windschluepfige-diesel-hybrid_did_26249.html
Every idea the environmentalist wackos force on us is a failure. Mercury-filled lightbulbs, toilets that don’t flush much water, hybrid cars, solar and wind power, killing oil pipelines and drilling, recycling – everything. It’s all crap and it all winds up failing ultimately and costing us a fortune in the long run.
I am fascinated by Sal Minella’s comment that lithium in the landfill poisons folks. How does that happen, exactly? In what way is lithium poisonous? I don’t find any lithium compounds listed as toxins. There is a lot of the stuff around, in sea water and what not, and people take lithium carbonate for manic depression, but they were depressed before they took the lithium compound, not after. What’s with this?
One solution is to force dealers to post a warning that the mileage the EPA says the car can expect may be unreasonable and false.
Don’t you like disclaimers?
In some states and some courts, a limited small claims action means you can’t take an attorney.
This case isn’t as simple as presented. The Honda Civic hybrids from 2006 onward have a known problem with their “Integrated Motor Assist” that leads to premature aging of the batteries, poor mileage and erratic performance. There’s a vast community of ticked-off owners out there who share their gripes on the web. These cars give you worse mileage than the pre-2006 Civic hybrids, so a lot of folks who upgraded their Civic in recent years witnessed a very noticeable decline in mileage. Honda has so far only responded by issuing a software patch that makes mileage worse but prolongs he life of the batteries. They refuse to issue a recall because he problem is not safety related.
So this is really a quality issue and not a story about forcing car-makers to be more honest about mileage claims.
jorgekafkazar says:
January 5, 2012 at 4:07 pm
“A friend recently bought a “Smart” Car, a vehicle that I shudder to look at. Well, someone plowed into the back of it with a piece of Detroit iron two weeks ago. ”
I nearly rear-ended a Smart a few years back – he couldn’t decide whether to take an exit or not so he just stopped, and these tiny cars stop on a dime. Very dangerous to be behind one.
“You DO get a lot of efficiency from a hybrid. And why not combine a Turbodiesel with a Hybrid, creating an efficiency double-whopper?”
The reason why the deso / hybrid wasn’t manufactured earlier was because of the vibration caused by starting a diesel motor. The “start / stop” funcitonality when switching from ICE to batt’s was too noticeable wehn mated to a diesel to be deemed “ready for prime time”. I guessed the NVH issued may have been solved.
Reasons why US cars get less MPG then those sold in other parts of the world.
-Difference in gallon measurement.
-EPA regulated fuel. Right from the get go there is up to10% inert material(legally) that you get no energy from at all. Toss in ethanol and you are talking some serious differences in MPG.
-EPA regulated emissions choking off the motor.
-NTSB regulated saftey standards. Saftey=weight which impacts mileage. Even though a car has the same name on it doesn’t mean it’s made the same from country to country (even state to state here in the US but that is emissions, not saftey).
The EPA has been killing diesel powered vehicles in recent years. When I bought mine diesel was cheaper then regular unleaded gas (87 octane) and now is more expensive then supreme (92 octane). All the EPA mandated fuel blend standards has driven costs up significantly and dropped mileage. My own diesel has dropped 1mpg which is significant since I get 15-17mpg in all around driving. I see the advertised EPA ratin of the VW TDI has dropped ~5mpg during this EPA driven crusade.
I got 35 mpg on a 1992 Ford Crown Vic with a big V8 that I owned till two years ago when I traded it in on a cash for clunkers deal. After 18 years it still didn’t burn oil and it still got 35 mpg on the highway at the speed limit. Only problem with it was the electronic governor that shut the engine off at 1?0 km per hour …. Great car. But for the paint failing (known problem) I would probably still be driving it.
JEM says:
January 5, 2012 at 11:54 am
Henry Chance – no, emission controls don’t account for the difference. Modern engine controls are enormously more efficient than old carburetors.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I have a 1990 Ford F250 fuel injected V8 truck. Pulling the pollution gear off increased the fuel mileage from 15 mpg to 20 mpg and I still use it for ploughing snow. Not bad for a 22 year old gasoline hog.
My son has an old diesel Jetta and he gets about 60 miles per imperial gallon on the highway (which is about the same as others on this forum get – converted from US to Imperial ~20% difference in gallons).
nc said
nc, I never gave one thought to a Prius. I laughed at them like everyone else. However, pumping $600+/mo in gas in her Dodge Dakota (very good truck) was getting old, not to mention frequent tires and brakes replacement. All that needs to be added to maintenance costs. Sorry to say, but every American made 4 cyl failed under mail delivery rigor. The Honda CRV worked quite well, but still not a true 4×4 so deep snow made it difficult.
A major problem with finding a mail route vehicle is most carriers still like LH drive, at least that’s what my wife tells me. Nearly every vehicle nowadays has a console that won’t allow the driver to cross over from the passenger side to the brake/gas pedals. I looked around for getting a new vehicle, checked all the hybrids out; virtually every one had the console shift.
On happenstance I found the PriusChat forum and was shocked that someone was using a Prius. At first I thought it was a joke. I had the same worries about battery life etc, but found out the battery is the least of worries on the Toyota Prius. In fact, there are quite a few folks using the Prius for mail delivery. They recommended getting the oldest highest mileage Prius I could find and not worry about the battery. My wife ended up buying a 2008 model with low mileage which allows removal of the console giving full access across the seats. 2009 and up…..completely filled up with non-removable console.
All the stereotypes about the Prius turned out to be totally wrong. As for the million mile Corrolla, well, even a blind squirrel will eventually find a nut. I owned a 1989 Corrolla, the last carburetor version made; great car. The best mileage car I ever owned was a 1984 Dodge Colt with the economy stick- 45-50 mpg was common. Something changed after that model year as I notice even today the so-called “sub compacts” get crappy mileage compared to the 25 year+ old models.
Auto manufacturers are missing out on a huge market; 400,000 rural mail carriers. It’s getting near impossible to find one that suits the purpose because of the console. Even trucks are doing away with the column shifts…..personally I detest console shifters in a truck.
Anyway, it would hard pressed to convince me hybrids are a waste of money now that I own one and see the fuel bills be cut by 3-4x, at least for what my wife uses it for.
EPA ratings have nothing to do with this case. It is the degradation of the fuel economy over time, not its variation from EPA ratings that is at issue. Gasoline powered vehicles degrade very little over time. Battery powered vehicles degrade all the time, for several reasons. I live in hilly country, and my neighbor, who got her Nissan Leaf in October was real happy about it, until winter arrived. Now she can no longer get up the hill to her house on cold evenings after work. The dealer never told her that this would happen, but now he says he did warn her. Battery powered cars are not for cold weather of hilly areas, yet where I live, so many people drive these crap hybrids and Smarts, it is lucky for them that they never traded in the big Lexus or Mercedes that had when they decided to make their statement about how superior they are to neanderthals like me who drive big SUVs, yet who the hell else will get them out of the snow when they are blocking the road? I have to climb that same hill every day.
Lighter materials that give the same safety or better than existing.
Engines that have much better power to weight ratio (angellabsllc.com).
Drivers who don’t come off the line like a scalded jackrabbit.
That will outdo any battery for now. The whole problem of storing electricity or hydrogen inexpensively, in quantity and in a small space has not been solved yet. There is very interesting work being done but nothing in mass production yet.
mizimi says:
January 5, 2012 at 10:25 am
Only makes sense when you understand she is a lawyer. Did she sue when her gas only car stopped giving her 40mpg as the engine wore and went out of spec? No, I guess not. But Honda would have claimed various mileages in the advert for that car. So where is the difference? Anybody with a modicum of common sense understands mileage claims assume the vehicle is in 100% condition..and yes, even batteries have a working life which means as they age they become less efficient. But hey, if you can make a buck or two out of it……………….
Just scanning so don’t know if this has already been addressed, but your an (self snip).
I have a 1995 Ford Escort (stop laughing), a “gas only car,” that still gets over 30 mpg, even on the 10% ethanol gas they sell these days. And the car has over 170,000 miles and is blowing smoke out the the tailpipe. Whatever the gas mileage was rated at 16+ years ago, it’s still doing pretty well.
“Anybody with a modicum of common sense” understands that, with the price they charge and the hype for these kinds of cars, the new electric/hybrid cars should not be breaking down as quickly or performing as badly as they are. They are over-hyped and over-advertised, and you would be sued if you falsely advertised a product like this. I hope she wins.
Hmmm… My 2003 Civic Hybrid’s mileage has dropped, too – but only from ~49 to ~45 over 8 years and 100,000 miles. Something doesn’t smell right. Lawyer, huh?
Well my Subaru Legacy (170 HP), is rated at 25 around town, and 31 on the hiway, or thereabouts.
If I start up on city streets/expressways at say 25 to 45 mph, It will sit at 15 to 18 MPG (it has a gauge). But once at speed, if I take my foot off the gas, it shifts all the way to top gear ratio, and RPMs drop to around 12-15 hundred, and the MPG shoots up to 45-50 mpg, and stays there, when I put by foot back on the pedal.
If I get on Hiway 280 (rolley hilley), and drive from Cupertino to San Francisco, which is 40-45 miles or so, I can average better than 45 mpg at 61 mph cruise controlled for the trip; sometimes on the downhills, it pegs the meter at 99.9 mpg.
It’s the traffic lights and cutting in and out drivers, who put my overall average mpg down to 27.1 mpg.
Electric/hybrid cars are still a niche item. The Prius is a popular cab in Vegas, but most of them
are rattle traps. The mail carrier probably puts up with the ride because he also gets paid by the mile.
If someone wants to buy a hybrid car that most likely will cost more to operate per mile unless used hard during the early part of it’s life, so be it, it’s still a fee country for the moment. Just don’t
subsidize it with public money and don’t kid yourself that you’re saving the planet. The latter act puts you in the dupe category. This Civic hybrid story is sad and demonstrates how building a concept based on the false premise of climate change and CO2 reduction has hurt both Honda (a company that normally provides a good and useful product) and it’s customers.