Autoblog

Honda has decided to settle a class-action lawsuit that alleges its odometers were racking up miles too fast. The automaker says odometers on some 6 million Hondas affected by the suit were accurate to within 3.75% on the high side. The NHTSA doesn't regulate odometer accuracy, and the only industry standard is a voluntary one set by the Society of Automotive Engineers that says odos should be within +/-4%. While the car's affected by the suit fall within that range, Honda recognized that its customers expected their odometers "would be based on zero," and they weren't.

The settlement will lengthen the warranty mileage of affected vehicles by 5% and Honda will pay lease-mileage penalties incurred by owners, which is expected to cost the automaker around $6 million. If you own a 2002 to 2006 Honda or Acura bought between April 12, 2002 and November 7, 2006, then you're eligible for the benefits of the settlement.

The lawsuit also prompted lawyers to test the odometer accuracy of other vehicles. It was found that on average domestic vehicles were nearly perfect in their odo accuracy, while Toyotas actually racked up fewer miles on the clock than they did in reality. Nissans, however, didn't fare as well, and a new class-action suit has been filed on behalf of Altima owners who say their odometers are counting the miles 2.5% to 3% faster than they should.

[Source: USA Today]

Thanks for the tip, John!

What's with all these class-action lawsuits lately? Land Rover was just slapped with one thanks to Attorney Mark Anderson in California who filed suit on behalf of all 2004 and 2005 Land Rover LR3 owners in the state. Turns out that the tires on many of these LR3 SUVs are allegedly wearing unevenly, which causes them to make loud noises when the vehicle is moving. The piece we link to from KGO-TV Channel 7 in the Bay Area highlights the trouble of one man, Lew Colon, whose LR3 developed the noise after only 5,000 miles. After some complaining, Colon got Land Rover to give him three new tires, though he had to pay for the fourth. After another 6,000 miles, however, the tires started to wear unevenly again and the noise returned. At 25,000 miles now, Colon's still on that second set.

Land Rover has issues a technical service bulletin about the abnormal wear with instructions for service technicians to use new suspension settings. It would seem that the company at least acknowledges the rapid and uneven tire wear can be traced back to a flaw in the vehicle's suspension design, but so far it has not issued a recall to fix the problem. In the meantime, Colon and the rest of the LR3 owners in California will be filing suit against the automaker to seek a solution.

Thanks for the tip, Oliver!

[Source: KGO-TV Channel 7]

Earlier this month, Autoblog informed you about General Motors electing to handle a widespread intake manifold gasket defect on a vehicle-by-vehicle basis. But if Toronto-based law firm Stevensons LLP has any say in the matter, the automaker won't have the option to be choosy with some 400,000 Canadian vehicles.

The firm announced Tuesday that it is filing a class-action lawsuit against General Motors of Canada Ltd., as well as parent company General Motors Corp. The suit is predicated on the premature failure of intake manifold gaskets used in a wide range of the company's vehicles from 1995-2003. Given the 400,000 vehicle estimate by Stevensons and an average claim of $3,000 per vehicle, the class-action tab could balloon to $1.2 billion dollars.

A similar lawsuit in the U.S. was granted class-action status in January.

Click on the link to see further details, including a list of affected vehicles.

[Sources: The Canadian Press via Canada.com; Canadianally.com]