Honda recall involves scary brake defect

Jayne O'Donnell, USA TODAY

Honda's recall of nearly 250,000 Honda and Acura vehicles worldwide because of inadvertent braking may be a sign of the bedeviling problems to come with the complex electronics controlling cars.

Safety advocate Sean Kane says the recall speaks to a larger issue with vehicle electronics. He points to NHTSA's 2007 decision to close an investigation into inadvertent braking in 2000-2001 Mercedes-Benz M-Class SUVS. There have been nearly 500 complaints about the problem in these M-Class models.

Melissa Marsala of Cape Coral, Fla., had the problem in her 2001 M430 and says, "It was a horrifying experience." She fears "someone is going to get seriously hurt" due to malfunctioning safety electronics. Her vehicle's problem was traced to a faulty yaw sensor.

"What we still lack is an underlying safety requirement for electronic systems," says Kane of Safety Research & Strategies. "When all else fails, the driver shouldn't be the fail-safe."

Honda's recall of 183,000 vehicles in the U.S. includes 101,000 Pilot SUVs, 60,000 Acura MDX SUVs and 21,000 Acura RL sedans, all from the 2005 model year. It also includes 800 of Acura's 2006 MDX models.

Carrie Carvalho of Arlington, Mass., petitioned NHTSA to investigate the issue last year. She was riding in her 2005 Pilot at about 45 miles per hour in October 2010 when it started braking, causing her to veer off the road, she said in an interview Thursday. Thinking it was a fluke, her boyfriend, Rob Marchant, decided to resume driving. They got back on the road, and it happened again.

"It's not like it brakes for a second," says Carvalho. "It takes control of the vehicle."

Honda now says the defect is in the vehicles' stability control system, which helps the driver keep control, sometimes by selectively applying braking. Oxidation in wiring or a loose bolt can cause the sudden braking. Honda spokesman Chris Martin acknowledges there have been far more reports than initially reported.

When Carvalho contacted the dealer and Honda, however, she says they wouldn't do anything about it. That's despite the fact she immediately found similar complaints online from other Pilot owners. Even though she was afraid to be in the vehicle, she's had to keep making car payments as the Pilot sat in her driveway.

Martin says the braking incidents are very infrequent and difficult to duplicate.

"It probably really comes down to being able to duplicate and demonstrate what happened to the vehicle," says Martin. "All of these vehicles are outside of the warranty. The dealer has to actually to be able to see something happening" to fix it.

Another 70,000 Honda vehicles, including the Odyssey minivan, were recalled in Canada, Australia, Mexico and Germany. They were produced from March 2004 through May 2006. But the U.S.-model Odyssey is not part of the recall.

Honda's stability control system integrates braking, traction control, stability control and "brake assist," which is designed to reduce stopping distances during emergency braking. NHTSA said in its investigation report that the allegations of unexpected braking appeared to be related to inappropriate activation of the brake- assist function.

Massachusetts State Rep. Sean Garballey was riding in the Pilot with Carvalho, Marchant and Marchant's 8-year-old son at the time of the incident. Garballey says he wrote a letter to Honda describing what happened and asking the company to take "the necessary steps to ensure these unfortunate events don't happen again."

Martin says he doesn't know all the details of Carvalho's case, but says the company will handle incidents such as hers on a "case-by-case basis."

Kane says NHTSA needs rules to prevent the kind of problems that can occur with interconnected safety electronics, such as those on Honda's recalled vehicles. The International Organization for Standardization issued a voluntary standard in 2011 that calls for automakers to perform what's known as a "functional safety assessment " to identify risks during the design phase. It should be a requirement, Kane says.

"When you have failures like a yaw sensor going bad, you can plan for that and design it out," says Kane.