I purchased a brand new 2005 Honda Civic 2 door coupe (Value package) in February of 2005. I now have 67,000 miles as of June 4th, 2007. Over the past week, my speedometer has been malfunctioning. I would be driving along at 60 MPH and my speedometer jumps down to 20 mph and then flops up to 70 mph and continuously moves all over the place. The next day it could then act fine without any problems. I went to the Honda Dealer in Cedar Rapids, IA and they ran a diagnostic. They told me that I need to replace the "Case Assembly" as it is malfunctioning. The "Case Assembly" containsall the instrumentssuch as the fuelguage, odometer and engine temperature. They quoted me a replacement price of $408.37 for the "case assembly" part and $129 for labor...for a total cost of $537.37. I would then need to pay an additional $208 to get the odomoter set to the appropriate mileage...but this would be optional. If I didn't pay the $208, then I could opt for a sticker to be puton the inside of the driversdoor.

The Honda dealer in Cedar Rapids told me that the problem does not lie with the speed sensor because the check engine light did not come on for me.

I am surprised that I have to dump $700K into what I thought would be a minor speedometer problem since the car is so new. Has anyone else had this issue? The Honda Dealer in Iowa City where I purchased the car told me they would replace the case assembly (assumming that was the issue) for $150 less than the Cedar Rapids dealer.

I switched from Pontiac to Honda when I purchased this car 2 years ago and wonder if I just made a really big mistake in purchasing the Honda. Even through Honda has great reviews and an excellent repair history, I never had this sort of problem with my Pontiac.

 

Go junkyard hunting or to ebay, sound to me like you just have to swap out the cluster.

 

Thanks for the info. I've been looking at Ebay this morning. Do you know of any places that would be able to fix the instrument cluster?

 

You might not be able to get it fixed. Its real easy to switch it out with another one though. Its just a couple of screws, and pop out some tabs.

 

I found several automotive shops (non Honda)that will replace the case assembly for $85...as it only takes one hour of their time to replace it. However, they will not reset the odometer to the correct mileage...they told me that only the Honda dealer can do that. The Honda dealer told me they have to send it off somewhere for the odometer to be reset. I'm trying to figure out where this place is that they send it off to so that my own mechanic can do the same thing...and charge me a lot less to do it.

I found a honda dealer in Rhode Island that will sell me the exact same part new shipped to my door for $100 less than the dealers in my area would sell the part to me for. The website is http://www.hondaautomotiveparts.com/home.htmand its Majestic Honda in Lincoln, RI. This appears to be a good place to purchase new honda parts at a discount.

 

Well its illegal for anyone to tamper with the mileage of the car, thats why a dealer is supposed to do it........but im sure theres ways of doing it

 

Yep...I suppose odometers need to be sent off to authorized centers in order to control odometer tampering which I believe is a federal offense. Supposedly a large percentage of used cars have had their odometers changed and it costs consumers somewhere between $4 and $10 billion dollars a year in America.