01
Substantial Defect
One that impairs the use, value or safety of the vehicle. Stalling, brake failure, steering and persistent electrical faults qualify. A rattle generally does not.
By Manufacturer
HONDA LEMON LAW.
Honda's largest current recall is not an engine or a transmission. It is 880,514 vehicles whose rear subframe corrodes at the suspension mounting points — and Acura claims run under the same campaign numbers.
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EXPLORE ↓What Decides It
Four facts, in this order.
Honda built it, but Honda does not decide it. These four questions decide it, and the repair orders in your glovebox answer all four.
02
Repair Attempts
Florida looks for three attempts at the same defect. New York looks for four. Recall work and visits that found nothing both count.
03
Days Out of Service
Thirty cumulative days in Florida and in New York. Cumulative, not consecutive, and the days count whether or not anything was fixed.
04
Coverage Window
The defect has to be reported while the vehicle is inside the warranty or rights period. When it was reported matters more than today's date.
Honda's reputation for durability is part of why owners of a defective Honda wait so long before acting. The recall record is a useful corrective: campaign 26V365 covers 880,514 Pilot, Ridgeline, Passport and Acura MDX vehicles in salt-belt states whose rear subframe can corrode at the suspension mounting points and fracture.
Acura is Honda's luxury division and shares campaign numbers — both 26V365 and the 98,892-vehicle airbag sensor campaign 26V332 cover Honda and Acura models under one number. An Acura claim tracks the same defect record and runs against the same manufacturer.
Oil dilution is the complaint Honda owners raise most and the one least likely to be a recall. Fuel diluting engine oil in turbocharged engines, along with CVT judder and hesitation, sits in warranty and repeat-repair territory rather than in a campaign. That does not make it weaker — it makes the repair orders the whole case.
Jonathan D. Schwartz has +25 years of experience handling Lemon Law and warranty matters, including claims against Honda. Bad Vehicle offers a free case evaluation, direct access to the attorney handling the claim, and no upfront legal fee to begin pursuing an eligible case.
Recall or Claim
A recall says Honda knows. A claim says they were given the chance to fix it.
A recall is the manufacturer acknowledging that a defect exists across a population of vehicles and offering a remedy. It is a public admission of the fault pattern, which makes it useful evidence. What it is not is a Lemon Law claim.
The claim arises from what happened to your vehicle: the defect was reported, the dealership was given a reasonable number of attempts to repair it, and it is still there. A Honda recall notice or technical service bulletin covering the fault on your model proves the manufacturer already knew.
Some of the most persistent Honda complaints have no campaign at all. Oil dilution, CVT judder and hesitation are handled as warranty repairs, which means there is no recall notice to point at — and the repair orders become the entire evidentiary record.
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Check before the next visit
An Acura claim runs under the same campaign number as the Honda.
Three visits for one fault is not normal wear.
Check My Case ↗Recurring Honda Faults
WHAT KEEPS COMING BACK.
These are the defect categories that generate the most Lemon Law and warranty claims against Honda. A vehicle showing one of these is not automatically a claim. A vehicle showing one of these repeatedly and unrepaired usually is.
Rear Subframe Corrosion
Campaign 26V365 recalled 880,514 Pilot, Ridgeline, Passport and Acura MDX vehicles in salt-belt states, where the rear subframe corrodes at the suspension mounting points and can fracture.
Brake Pedal Displacement
25V391 recalled 259,033 Pilot, Acura TLX and MDX vehicles whose brake pedal pivot pin was not properly secured, letting the pedal shift out of position and defeating braking as intended.
High-Pressure Fuel Pump Cracks
24V763 recalled 720,810 Accord, Civic and CR-V Hybrid vehicles whose high-pressure fuel pump may crack and leak fuel, creating a fire risk near any ignition source.
Passenger Seat Sensor Failure
26V332 recalled 98,892 Honda and Acura vehicles where humidity cracks a capacitor in the front passenger seat weight sensor, risking unintended airbag deployment during a crash.
Rearview Camera Defects
26V306 recalled 59,887 Prologue and Acura ZDX electric SUVs for rearview cameras displaying blank or distorted images, a federal rear-visibility non-compliance.
Oil Dilution and CVT Complaints
Honda's turbocharged engines and CVTs generate sustained complaints of fuel diluting engine oil, judder and hesitation — repeat-repair patterns that underpin warranty and Lemon Law claims rather than recalls.
Where It Ends Up
Four ways a Honda claim resolves.
Which one applies depends on the state, the facts and what gets negotiated with Honda. All four start with the same free case review.
The models we see most
Recall record · NHTSA · September 2026
HONDA880,514 VEHICLES. ONE CORRODED SUBFRAME.
01 / 2014-2023
880,514
Rear subframe corrosion — Pilot, Ridgeline, Passport and Acura MDX in salt-belt states. The subframe corrodes at the rear suspension mounting points and can fail, causing loss of control.
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02 / 2017-2025
720,810
Fuel pump cracks and leaks — Accord, Civic and CR-V Hybrid. The high-pressure fuel pump may crack and leak fuel, creating a fire risk near an ignition source.
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03 / 2021-2025
259,033
Brake pedal shifts position — Pilot, Acura TLX and Acura MDX. The brake pedal pivot pin was not secured properly, so the pedal can move and prevent braking as intended.
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04 / 2016-2026
98,892
Passenger airbag sensor fault — Civic, Accord, CR-V, Pilot, Odyssey, HR-V, Ridgeline, Insight, Fit, Passport and Acura TLX, MDX and RDX. A cracked capacitor can trigger unintended deployment.
Check My Case ↗Campaign 26V365 covers Pilot, Ridgeline, Passport and Acura MDX vehicles in salt-belt states. Acura shares Honda campaign numbers, so an Acura claim tracks the same record. Figures from NHTSA as of 23 September 2026 — check your VIN for open recalls at no cost.
Read the 15 Questions ↗Honda Lemon Law
15 questions Honda owners ask.
General information about Lemon Law and warranty claims, not legal advice. What applies to a particular vehicle depends on its records, its warranty and the state where it was bought.
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Frequently, yes, under the same campaign number. Acura is Honda's luxury division and shares NHTSA filings — campaign 26V365 covers the Acura MDX alongside the Honda Pilot, Ridgeline and Passport, and 26V332 covers the Acura TLX, MDX and RDX alongside ten Honda models. An Acura claim tracks the same defect record and runs against the same manufacturer.
It is fuel mixing into the engine oil, a long-standing complaint on Honda's turbocharged engines that the firm sees regularly. There is generally no recall behind it, so it is handled as a warranty repair. That does not make it weaker — it means the repair orders are the entire evidentiary record, and the visits where the dealership said the oil level was "within specification" matter as much as the ones where work was done.
Campaign 26V365, filed in June 2026, covers 880,514 vehicles in salt-belt states — the 2016-2022 Pilot, 2017-2023 Ridgeline, 2019-2023 Passport and 2014-2020 Acura MDX — where the rear subframe corrodes at the suspension mounting points and can fail, causing loss of vehicle control. Check your VIN. It is Honda's largest current action by a wide margin.
It can be. CVT judder, hesitation and delayed engagement are among the most persistent Honda complaints and are generally handled as warranty repairs rather than recalls. The test is the same as for any defect: was it reported inside the coverage period, was the manufacturer given a reasonable number of attempts, and is it still there. Keep every repair order, including the ones that found nothing.
A practical complication worth raising early. The Honda Prologue and Acura ZDX are GM-built electric SUVs sold under Honda badges, which affects parts sourcing and who handles what. Honda recalled 59,887 of them under campaign 26V306 for rearview cameras showing blank or distorted images. The warranty obligation runs to Honda, but the underlying hardware is not.
No. A recall is the manufacturer acknowledging that a defect exists across a population of vehicles and offering a remedy. A Lemon Law claim arises from what happened to your specific vehicle: a substantial defect, reported inside the coverage period, that the manufacturer was given a reasonable number of attempts to repair and did not. The recall is useful evidence within that claim, not a substitute for it.
Yes, where the recall remedy addressed the defect at issue and the fault persisted afterward. Owners frequently leave recall visits out of their own count because the work was free and manufacturer-initiated, which weakens the record unnecessarily. If the vehicle went in for the fault and came back with the fault, it was an attempt.
Florida's presumption generally arises after three repair attempts for the same defect, or after the vehicle has been out of service for 30 or more cumulative days during the Lemon Law rights period. A separate and earlier trigger applies at 15 cumulative days, when written notice goes to the manufacturer. It is a presumption rather than a fixed requirement — a defect serious enough to be dangerous can qualify with fewer attempts, and the presumption is one route to the remedy rather than the only one.
New York generally looks for four repair attempts for the same defect, or 30 or more days out of service, within the first two years or 18,000 miles. The framework is close to Florida's but the thresholds and the arbitration process differ, and a vehicle bought in one state and serviced in another needs the applicable law identified early.
One that impairs the use, value or safety of the vehicle. Stalling, brake failure, steering faults and persistent electrical problems clearly qualify. A rattle or a trim complaint generally does not. Between those extremes the answer depends on how the fault affects the vehicle in normal use, and on what the repair orders actually say about it.
State Lemon Law is primarily directed at qualifying new and demonstrator vehicles. A used Honda can still carry rights where a manufacturer or dealer warranty was active when the defect was reported, generally under federal warranty law including the Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, which does not carry the same new-vehicle limitation.
A leased vehicle can be covered where it meets the same substantive requirements that apply to a purchase. The calculation of any refund is tied to the amounts actually paid into the lease rather than the full vehicle price, and the leasing company is dealt with as part of the resolution rather than left to be sorted out afterward.
That visit still counts as a repair attempt. Intermittent faults are extremely common in software, camera and electrical systems, and a growing share of manufacturer campaigns are software-related. A record of repeated visits where the fault was reported and not resolved is precisely the pattern the law addresses. Ask for the complaint to be written down in your words, and keep the copy that says it could not be verified.
Three, in practice. A repurchase, where the manufacturer buys the vehicle back and refunds what was paid, less a statutory offset for the miles driven before the first report of the defect. A replacement with a comparable vehicle. Or a cash settlement where the vehicle stays with you and the manufacturer pays for the diminished value. Which applies depends on the state, the facts and what is negotiated.
Broadly: the purchase price plus collateral and incidental charges, minus a mileage offset tied to the distance driven before the defect was first reported. Registration, taxes and finance charges are frequently recoverable. The offset is the part manufacturers most often calculate in their own favour, and it is worth checking line by line.
Other Manufacturers
The badge does not decide the claim.
The law applies the same way to every brand sold in the state. What differs is the defect pattern, the warranty terms and how hard the manufacturer fights.
Get in Touch
Is your Honda back at the dealership again?
Send the year, model and the repair history. Oil dilution and CVT complaints rarely have a recall behind them, which makes the repair orders the whole case.
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