WELP... I have to say I'm impressed at how CarFax reports recalls and safety issues much earlier than the actual manufacturer.
Honda has made an official press release for the Accord/Insight BCM Recall as of 12/15/20... 2 days later than CarFax, and without yet posting the recall notice on the Honda Recalls or NHTSA Recall site.
Honda will voluntarily recall approximately 737,000 model-year 2018-2020 Accord and Accord Hybrid vehicles along with 2019-2020 Insight vehicles in the United States to update software in the Body Control Module (BCM).
hondanews.com
- 737k cars are affected in the US across the 2018-2020 Accord, 2018-2020 Accord Hybrid, and 2019-2020 Insight models.
- "Due to a programming flaw, a certain combination of driver actions and vehicle conditions may disrupt communication between the BCM and other components, causing illumination of several warning lights and malfunction of one or more electronic components including the rear view camera display, turn signals and windshield wipers, some potentially increasing the risk of a crash."
- Mailed notification to affected owners will begin in late-Jan. 2021.
That rear camera is mentioned makes me wonder if the
prior rear camera software recall for 2019 Insights was an early indicator of what was to come for the BCM. Also interesting that
the 2021 Insight isn't included in the recall. Production on the 2021 Insight started in late-March / early-April 2020, and
the 2021 Insight began selling on 5/12/20. Honda began posting 'Manufacturer Communications' in Jan 2020 asking dealers for examples of BCM/DTC/MIL failures, which suggests they've know about (and resolved) the issue more than a year ago... but sat on the information until now (!!).
The press release suggests owners check the
www.recalls.honda.com site or call (888) 234-2138 to see if their vehicle is included... but
as of right now, the info posted on Honda's Recall site does NOT show notice of this recall yet for the 2018-2020 Accord/Hybrid 2019-2020 Insight model years. The 'latest' recall that is posted there as of now is only the fuel pump recall from May 2020.
The press release also mentions "Honda has received no reports of crashes or injuries related to this issue" - but we know that several owners have posted multiple complaints on
rogue error messages and electrical issues previously.
@Wifey'sInsight began seeing this 1.5 years ago (Jul 2019) and narrowed down possible cause to BCM at the time. The
dealer initially kept resetting the BCM, but
later provided a software update. I'm curious as to whether the 'new' software update will be needed for that car, or if the
software update solution from 1.5 years ago is the same fix.
Lastly, Honda used this 'opportunity' to
recall the 2002-2006 CR-V for moisture-related power window switch failures (268k cars) and
multiple 2007-2015 models in 'salt belt states' for front drive shaft corrosion risk (430k cars). In total across these 3 recall notices, Honda is recalling 1.79 million vehicles worldwide, of which 1.4 million are in the US... and
half of the US recall is for the Accord/Insight BCM alone.
Doing some
rough math on US
Accord sales and
Insight sales across the affected model years (2018 Accord started selling in Oct 2017, and 2019 Insight started selling in June 2018)... the
cumulative sales data (574k) suggests that every 2018-2020 Accord and 2019-2020 Insight will be affected by this recall. My guess is the remaining 163k (to add up to the 737k total recall) are unsold cars in dealer inventory.