2005 Honda Accord Hybrid

This is a warning to anyone looking to buy one of these vehicles. I
just bought one a couple months ago and it makes a constant loud
annoying humming sound around 80 mph. The sound actually starts at 70
and continually gets higher in pitch and louder up to 80 mpg. Honda
refuses to do anything about this problem, they state that since the
condition occurs outside the legal speed limit for my state, they are
not obligated to fix the problem.

So if you looking at buying the Hybrid, beware. Buying a car from
Honda in general may not be the best idea if their policy is to refuse
repair for conditions that only occur at higher than the posted speed
limit.

As for me, I will not be buying another Honda, nor will anyone in my
family. There customer service for this issue has been pitiful and a
bitter disappointment.

 

if you bought this car to drive over 80mph you should have just picked up a
regular non-hybrid Accord, as it won't save you any gas at thast speed.

 

Do you have the CVT? The CVT in my 2003 Civic has a steel belt that makes
a noticeable amount of high pitched noise. I rarely notice it if the radio
is on, but the car is so quiet otherwise that I sometimes think there is a
police car coming from somewhere a block away as I'm slowing for a stop
with the radio off...
At 70-80mph there's too much other noise in the Civic for me to notice the
CVT, but maybe that's different in the Accord.

The noise is a high enough pitch that different people hear it differently.

 

try playing with the tire pressure.

 

You sound very bitter for a new owner. What kind of car did you have before
this? Honda and their owner service has always been very fair to me. Honda
cars are not perfect, just better than most. Maybe you should give GM car
a try, I hear they are giving them away at employee price to try to stay
in business. Honda never had to do that. Be sure to tell the rest of your
family also.

 

I had a 1999 Nissan Maxima before this vehicle, and yes it still saves
fuel at 80 mph, it averages about 32 mpg at this speed. I am bitter
because this car has been in the shop for about a third of the time I
have owned it, and now they refuse to do anything about the humming
noise. Fresh off the lot the engine light would come on if you punched
the gas and accelerated to interstate speeds. They took a while to
figure out the problem, and then loaded a software update to the
computer that fixed the issue. They did make one attempt to fix this
humming noise, they actually replaced the transmission. However, when
that repair didn't fix the problem they decided they weren't obligated
to repair it due to the speed limit.

 

What does that mean, can you watch some hands pouring petrol from the
tank into a backup bottle or something?

 

why would you expect the dealer to break the law by driving that
fast? I've refused many aq customer ride along due to speed issues.
try this, have a state trooper ride with you at e this speed and
see what he says.
Chip

 

I would expect the dealer to repair the problem because it probably
indicates an issue that will eventually cause a mechanical failure of
some kind. Further, 80 mph is the average speed of any rush hour
traffic in the Nashville, TN area. Additionally, I travel, and some
states allow speeds up to 80 mph in any case. Finally, this is a
quality control issue. This vehicle is rated to go up to 160 mph, the
fact that it has problems at 80 mph shouldn't be discounted because of
the speed limit in any one particular location. As a side note, the
humming noise is also present at much lower speeds, it's just not near
as loud or annoying.

 

I've had my 2005 HAH in the shop three times about the check engine
light coming on at full throttle. They retrained the high speed
crankshaft position sensor but it still happens. Car gets only 32 MPG
on highway driving (~60 MPH) and 19 MPG in mixed freeway/city driving.
It stumbles at idle too but it generates no computer error codes so it
must be working perfectly.

The 2005 HAH is a dud.