Honda Announces Another Million Car Recall

2011 Honda CRZs with manual transmissions have a software glitch.

Honda has been a bit of a whipping boy as of late. Consumer Reports said the 2012 Civic was worse than the outgoing model it replaced, sales have taken a nosedive and they’ve had to recall more than a million and a half of their cars, including popular, highly fuel efficient ones like the Fit.

Alas, when it rains it pours, and troubles continue to flow to Honda. Today, they’re seeing their troubles increase, with an announcement of yet more global recalls, this time of almost one million CR-V, Fit and CRZ models.

The two recalls include an issue with the master switch for power windows in CR-V and Fit models, and a disturbing bug in the manual transitions of CRZs.

Honda says there is a design flaw in CR-V and Fit models that allows the residue from window cleaners like Windex to accumulate. Over time, this might lead to a degradation of electrical contacts in the switch, which can result in a fire. Thus far, no one has been injured, but if you’re an affected owner, we’d get it taken care of as soon as the official notification from Honda comes.

The transmission issue with Honda’s underwhelming CRZ “sport hybrid” may be nothing more than a software bug, but it does give us pause. It allows the car’s motor to rotate in the opposite direction of the gear selected in the transmission. That means a car in a forward gear could move backwards, or a car in reverse could move forwards.

Luckily, the newly announced recalls won’t impact many Honda owners in the United States. Just a slight 80,111 2006 CR-Vs and a mere 5,626 CRZs in the United States are the affected models here in the states.