25 April 2006: Honda Dealerships

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’ve spent time in my local Honda dealership, de Vries of York. First off, back in January actually, I went in on the day of the launch of the new Civic to plague the service receptionist with questions about Accord running costs an the like. It turns out that the Accord had been serviced by de Vries in the past so they had a useful list of work done.

My next visit was in April to have her SRS fault light diagnosed. This took all of twenty minute and I’m pleased to report, the diagnostics fee was a very reasonable £24. This is around half that of a Ford diagnostics charge and one third of a Vauxhall charge (at least going on what colleagues and personal experience tells me).

Sitting at the service waiting area, enjoying a mug of tea and being able to see the Honda technicians at work, the twenty minutes passed very quickly.

The diagnosis, however, was not so comfortable. I had already had a look at the under-seat wiring looms, checked the connections and these both appeared fine. Of course, appearing fine isn’t the same as being fine, heh. I had that sinking feeling that it would be the airbag (or SRS) command module… And I was right going on what the reported fault code was.

A new replacement part from Honda is £370 plus fitting, which is an hour and a half, the total bill being £450. I was just starting to warm to the Accord and a bill of this size wasn’t really part of the plan.

A few telephone calls later and a couple of searches on the Internet and I had tracked down a scrappy breaking a 1999 Accord complete with the SRS module for £65 plus VAT and postage. It’s unusual for the SRS module to fail, thus I was reasonably confident that the unit in the breaking model would work. That makes for a total saving of just under £300. One call to the Honda dealership to make sure they’re happy to fit a customer-supplier part and they are, so I bought the used SRS module.

You know, it’s a rather small item. I didn’t have it in my keep for long before putting it into the Accord but it’s barely larger than my Tungsten T2 personal digital assistant. It bolts in place under the centre console of the car and has two multiplugs to use. This is the little box of tricks that ascertains when and what airbags to deploy in the event of a crash. It’s a fundamental part of the Accord’s safety features and an illuminated SRS light is a MOT failure so something had to be done about it. I could have tried to remove the bulb I suppose but then I would need to inform my insurance company since disabling the airbags constitutes a modification to the vehicle. Can’t be doing with that!

Unfortunately, when the de Vries technician put the replacement SRS module into the Accord it did not solve the problem. Same reported error code, same red SRS lamp illuminated on the dashboard and same potential MOT failure.

I did a little digging. As it happens it is possible that a weak battery, producing a low voltage, can cause an SRS error. And I’ve noticed Hoshi’s dipped headlights noticeably dim when the compressor (and two cooling fans) cycle in. The lights brighten back to normal once the compressor cycles off. What are the chances of two failed SRS modules? What are the chances that a new battery will solve the airbag warning light?