CarComplaints.com Notes: The 2013-2014 Honda Accord is showing signs of an electrical problem with the starter failing soon after the 36K mile warranty expires. It's compounded by reports that the OEM battery doesn't have sufficient amps to start the V6 reliably after a year or two.
For now we are rating this problem with the "Beware" seal because it's occurring so soon after the 36K mile warranty expires. The upshot is when your Accord won't start, that's never good, but especially bad when it's just a few years old.
Also once again, owners are complaining that the 2013 Honda Accord seats are uncomfortable. Uncomfortable seats has been a significant complaint with the Accord since the 2008 model year.
10.0
really awful
Crashes / Fires:
20 / 1
Injuries / Deaths:
15 / 1
Average Mileage:
34,163 miles
About These NHTSA Complaints:
This data is from the NHTSA — the US gov't agency tasked with vehicle safety. Complaints are spread across multiple & redundant categories, & are not organized by problem.
So how do you find out what problems are occurring? For this NHTSA complaint data, the only way is to read through the comments below. Any duplicates or errors? It's not us.
I was sitting at a traffic light and the power steering quit while the car was stationary. Ten minutes later the power steering quit while I was making a right hand turn from a traffic light. In both cases the steering re-set itself after turning the vehicle off then starting it back up.
2013 Honda Accord: I was driving about 35 mph and suddenly I felt the steering wheel get stiff and immediately the indicator light came on the dashboard indicating my electronic power steering system had an issue. I slowed down promptly in the road (no one was behind me) and it took all I had to turn the wheel to get it off the road. I turned the car off for a moment just as the Honda manual instructed and when I turned the car back on, nothing had changed, still light on the dash and no possible way of me turning that wheel. I called aaa and the driver of aaa can vouch for this because it was still in the same condition when he picked it up. This was Wednesday evening, December 23 that it was towed to the dealership. On Friday morning, after dealer was closed christmas eve and christmas day, they called me saying nothing was wrong with my cari said really!!! I explained to them again and they ran a test and it said it needed software updates and/or electronic power steering rack. But Honda requires the updates to be installed first and there is a charge for that according to the dealership. So I said do what you have to do. (which I think is absurd, microsoft doesn't charge me money for updates) with it being over the christmas holiday, I had to wait until Monday for Honda to be contacted (per dealership Honda was closed) so I went 6 days with no car. Monday came around and Honda approved the dealership to do diagnostic testing on the car and with the safety concern they went ahead and replaced the electronic steering rack. I hope this has fixed the problem. There is nothing in the world that bothers me more than driving a car down the road and I lose control of steering.
05/25/14 while backing the vehicle out of my drive way I noticed the a thumping sound and a jerking from the vehicle which caused great alarm from me. I called the dealer and they told me to bring it in. When I took the vehicle in the kept it for about a day and told me that they could not find anything wrong with it and that the inspector said that the same thing was happening to a new vehicle, that the noise and jerking was just the way it was. They called it a hard shift. My car is not a daily driven vehicle being I have two other cars that I primarily use. At the time of the incident my car had aprox. 303 miles on it. Now several months later on 01/01/15 when I went to start my vehicle I noticed the same problem, and being that I had already taken it once to the dealer and them telling me nothing was wrong with it, I had no second thought of taking it out on the road. I proceeded to drive down my residential street and realized I had forgot something at home. So on the residential intersection I started to make a U turn when all of a sudden steering cut out on me in the middle of my turn. I narrowly missed oncoming traffic and stopped right before I hit the curb and a parked car. When I did stop and got my composure back I looked down and there was a steering wheel light on and a buzzing noise. All this while going no more then 6 miles and hour. At this current moment my car is less then 2 years old and has less then 400 miles on it and I cannot believe that this would happen to such a new car with so little miles on it. Following this incident I googled my car to see if I was the only one having this problem and lord behold I was not. There are numerous accounts of this happening to other people some resulting in serious accidents. But most of the cars in those incidents that I could see had about 20K to 30K miles on them and mine does not even have 1K on it yet.
I was driving and suddenly lost control over the steering of the car. It became almost impossible to steer and almost ran into another car. Was able to forcefully turn the wheel with all my might. Pulled over safely and turned the car off and when I turned it back on the problem was gone. Brought by car into the bode shop for unrelated issues and they experienced the problem while moving the car to another location. They will be bringing the car to Honda service for review. I am uncomfortable driving this vehicle especially with my wife and daughters in the car.
- Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
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So scary when all of a sudden you can't move the steering wheel of your car. I couldn't get the car steering to move, it was worse than driving a mac truck. I had a real hard time getting around corners but what do you do when you have this happen at night with no one around but drive it to a safe place.
I turned my vehicle on and had no power steering. The power steering light was on, indicating that there was a problem. I was able to drive it to the dealer where they told me the power steering torque had gone bad. To repair the vehicle, I would need to have the power steering rack replaced - over $2K! although my vehicle is less than 2 years old, I have passed the 35K mile warranty. This is a pretty painful bill to be forced to pay with such a new car!! why is this not recalled if so many are having issues with this?!!
On 11/22/14 I was driving on a small residential street going under 15mph approximately 5 feet from the turn I was going to be making. A right hand turn. I heard a bang and my steering completely locked up. I hit the curb causing my right front passenger tire to blow. The steering was completely locked up and the vsa light was on. I followed the instructions in the owners manual and turned the car off and then on again which shut the vsa light off and the tow truck driver was able to turn the wheel slightly but made a terrible clunking noise. The vehicle was towed to the dealership where it was determined the steering rack was broken. Now I am 2 weeks into this the dealership is struggling to get the car fixed, Honda has not yet returned my call so not sure they will warranty the car, I'm paying for insurance on a rental and wonder if my Honda is even a safe car to drive at this point. Why isn't anything being done" is this going to take someone dying before it's dealt with"
Low volume...clicking/rubbing noise when making turns. Honda knows of problem.. said there is no fix and it is a characteristic of this car. Their words not mine.... safety issue?
We had just pulled off of a major highway in bluffton South Carolina. Stopped at guard house and proceeded approx. 1/2 mile to stop sign when we tried to turn left without warning the (eps) power steering stopped working. We did not get a warning light until after the steering stopped working. You could not control the steering, but lucky for us we were turning into a parking area and stopped the car. We got out the owners manual and turned the car off as suggested, we restarted the car and the steering was still out and the warning light came on. We had the car towed to the closest Honda dealer. This is the second time we had this happen. The first time was in August, 2014. The first time the system did reset after we turned the car off and restarted it.
The vehicle's steering got very hard to turn while pulling into a parking spot. It became extremely difficult to steer all the way to the kingwood Honda service dept. This problem happened immediate and without warning. As I drove the vehicle to the dealer it normalized and then without warning got very stiff. Thus far the dealer does not know what is wrong with the vehicle and advised me today that they are going to call Honda in the morning for guidance.
I was driving and was about to turn on to my street and my power steering failed. It became really hard to turn. If there was a car parked I would have hit that car. I parked shut off the car and restarted the car and it seem fine till I turned the steering and as soon as I did it did the same exact things. Honda replaced the part. But its really dangerous and I worry if or when it will go out again.
As I was making a left turn at low speed from a stop sign, my car lost stability and steering felt unusual. Traffic was light and I was able to recover. The two subsequent turns (right and then left) on the same drive yielded similar feelings. When I looked into this, I found reports of an investigation by the NHTSA regarding loss of power steering on these vehicles. I believe this incident was related and felt it best to file a report.
I have a 2013 Honda Accord V6 coupe. When making a left turn the power steering went out I was able to just miss a curb and pulled into a parking lot wheel was very hard to turn. After shutting the car down and restarting the problem cleared. Will be taking it to the dealer today.
The power steering failed light illuminated and wasn't able to steer. Was able to park and restart car and everything was fine. Took it to the dealers they replaced the steering rack. Car was at dealers for 6 days.
The power steering just stopped working as the car was being driven. It also stalled out and was hard to start back up. Had it towed to dealer where the fix was the repair of the "torque angle sensor and harness."
In two incident that steering wheel stop working: Last week while the car was parked and tried to drive it and today (Oct 7, 2014) while I was driving between 35-40 mph the steering wheel was not working and I had to stop and switch the engine off and after 2 minutes start the car and it was fine.
While driving down farris rd at ~40 mph the eps light came on and the power steering failed. This happened on the way back from my pregnant wife's doctor appointment. We pulled over to the nearest empty parking lot and read the manual. We hadn't been doing any of the things the manual said would cause this. Over the next 10 miles this happened 3 more times. Once while sitting still in a drive through line. We called our Honda dealership and the offered to let us schedule an appointment and receive a shuttleride home. My wife got us slightly better service with a facebook post and they offered to look at our car that day and comped us a rental car under warranty. Several hours later we received a call that after speaking with their tech support they will need to replace the rack.
While driving home on the highway power steering suddenly froze, and light came on. Was able with great force, to make it home. Very frightening experience! this has happened several more times at slower speeds. The dealer was not able to find a problem. Luckily no accident but I feel unsafe driving with this intermittent yet scary situation.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T S
- Jacksonville, FL, USA