Honda recalls a huge batch of Fit and Vezel Hybrid cars in Japan due to faulty transmission software

The Japanese car majors just don’t seem to get over the woes of recalling their cars. Though most of the global auto majors have gone through the disgraceful and distressing act of recalls at some point of time or the other, which seem to grow in numbers in the recent times, the highly acclaimed Japanese car giants seem to get a bigger share of the recall issue. First and foremost, is the Japanese and the world’s auto leader, Toyota Motor which seem to be troubled very often fixing several issues in its various cars, and then other Japanese car makers like Honda and Nissan also seem to have similar difficulty. Japanese luxury car maker Honda Motors has again got one such issue, though this time only in its home market Japan.

Honda has announced that a large batch of very popular hybrid models in the Japanese car market need to be recalled. These two hybrid car models are namely, the very successful Fit Hybrid and the new Vezel Hybrid. These two hybrid models need to be recalled by their maker to fix an internal problem that involves the malfunctioning of a software program.

According to the reports, a total of 81,353 vehicles are affected and are recalled by Honda. This includes 70,929 units of the Honda Fit Hybrids and 10,424 units of the Honda Vezel Hybrids. All these vehicles were manufactured in Japan in the time period between the month of July 2013 and February 2014. The issue for which the vehicles need to be recalled is in the software program which is responsible for controlling the vehicles’ 7 speed dual clutch transmission system. This malfunctioning software could cause a delay in starting the vehicles or can even make them immovable altogether. Thus, it is a very crucial problem for which Honda had to make the recall. This is not the first time that the Fit Hybrid has been recalled. In fact, the vehicle has been recalled twice before because of the issues involving the same Dual Clutch Transmission of the car.

The vehicles in the US however are not affected by this recall. Honda North America’s assistant manager of the PR department, Jessica Fini revealed that this recall does not include the US Honda vehicles and does not have any impact on the US cars. This is also because the US Fit employs a continuously variable transmission in the place of the Dual Clutch Transmission. Thus, the upcoming new Fit will not be delayed, and the US market will not get the Fit’s hybrid version.

On the other hand, Honda’s upcoming new compact SUV that is based on the Vezel platform will launch at the end of 2014, thus there is a lot of time to fix any such issues. The Acura RLX in US, though a DCT is not the same transmission as that of the Fit Hybrid and thus does not suffer from any such issues.