auto recall

VW will offer “highly competitive” leases on ID.4 as sales restart

Last September, faulty door handle hardware caused Volkswagen to take the rather drastic steps of suspending sales and production of the electric crossover, as well as recalling almost 100,000 customer cars. Now, it says it has new parts that will allow it to fix existing cars, lift the stop-sale order, and soon, resume production at its factory in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

The ID.4, like many new EVs, features flush door handles in service of the all-important effort of drag reduction. Instead of conventional mechanical handles that interrupt the laminar air flow down the side of the car, VW instead went with an electromechanical solution.

Unfortunately, the door handle assemblies weren’t sufficiently waterproofed, allowing the electronics inside to corrode. Consequently, early last year VW started getting complaints of ID.4s with doors that would intermittently open while driving, with reporting almost 300 warranty claims by September, when it pulled the car from sale, issued the recall, and stopped the production line.

That line will restart “in the coming weeks,” VW says, and now that there are new and improved door handles available, dealers will now be able to complete the recall. That also means that any ID.4s in inventory can be fixed and then sold. To sweeten the deal, the automaker says that it will offer some “highly competitive lease offers,” as it hopes to send its clean crossover back up the sales charts.

“Sticky” steering sparks huge recall for Honda, 1.7M cars affected

auto recall, Cars / Mike M. / October 9, 2024

Honda is recalling almost 1.7 million vehicles due to a steering defect. An improperly made part can cause certain cars’ steering to become “sticky”—never an attribute one wants in a moving vehicle.

The problem affects a range of newer Hondas and an Acura; the earliest the defective parts were used on any vehicle was February 2021. But it applies to the following:

2022–2025 Honda Civic four-door
2025 Honda Civic four-door hybrid
2022–2025 Honda Civic five-door
2025 Honda Civic five-door Hybrid
2023–2025 Honda Civic Type-R
2023–2025 Honda CR-V
2023–2025 Honda CR-V Hybrid
2025 Honda CR-V Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle
2023–2025 Honda HR-V
2023–2025 Acura Integra
2024–2025 Acura Integra Type S

Honda says that a combination of environmental heat, moisture, and “an insufficient annealing process and high load single unit break-in during production of the worm wheel” means there’s too much pressure and not enough grease between the worm wheel and worm gear. On top of that, the worm gear spring isn’t quite right, “resulting in higher friction and increased torque fluctuation when steering.

The first reports of the problem date back to 2021 and had started an internal probe by November 2022. In March 2023, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration started its own investigation, but the decision to issue the recall only took place in September of this year, by which point Honda says it had received 10,328 warranty claims, although with no reports of any injuries or worse.

Honda has just finished telling its dealers about the recall, and owners of the affected vehicles will be contacted next month. This time, there is no software patch that can help—affected cars will be fitted with a new worm gear spring and plenty of grease.

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