Will Honda Car Failure Jeopardy Your Life?

PETALING JAYA: How far will you go to get your car fixed? In these day of light-speed emails, instant messages and cellphones, an irate car-owner decided to adopt an old-school method of seeking redress — by placing stickers all over his problematic car.

And the message on the stickers read: "My Honda Tak Guna" (My Useless Honda).

To make sure he got the full attention of the car manufacturer, this sticker-adorned vehicle was parked outside the Honda Malaysia sales and service office here in Section 13 — much to the amusement of many pedestrians and motorists.

As to why he had resorted to such measures, events executive Jess Ross said his car brakes kept failing despite several repairs.



"Three months after buying the car, the rear brakes started giving way.After having these replaced by Honda, the same problem occurred three months later with the brakes giving way in the middle of the road.

"Luckily, I wasn't hit by another car when it happened."

After sending the 15-month old car to the Honda authorised service centre, Sumber Auto, Ross claimed to have been told the car had its front brake callipers fitted wrongly during the original assembly.

Even after the brake calipers were rectified, Jess' woes continued with the calamitous Honda Accord he bought for about RM140,000.

Three months later, after getting his disc brake pads replaced for the second time, his Honda Accord started juddering again.

This time Honda mentioned the brake discs needed to be skimmed.

"On June 20 , there was a screeching sound from my front wheels and the car started juddering again. This time, I decided enough was enough. The car was towed to the Honda service centre for a fourth check on this particular screeching issue."



Claiming manufacturing defects, Ross said: "My demands are simple, firstly I want Honda to fully rectify the problems on my car and include a manufacturer's guarantee that such defects will not recur.

"Secondly, Honda could replace my car with another guaranteed problem-free unit. If all else fails, I want Honda to buy back the car at the purchase price.

"Honestly, I am still open to negotiations and a win-win situation I feel, is the best for both parties," he said, stressing he has no plans to remove the eye-catching stickers from his car.

A Honda Malaysia representative said the company remained committed to inspecting, servicing and repairing the problematic vehicle.

"The company would like to assure Ross the affected vehicle will be serviced and repaired to his satisfaction." Still unhappy with this response, Ross asked: "Why is it Honda Malaysia can't guarantee their parts, which serve a basic function of braking, to function properly?

"Is it too much to ask for a guarantee for their supposedly original parts which they recommended we use?"

Story Resource: MIROS CRU

Volvo Auto-Brake System Demo...Failed

This remembered me to MIROS 1st crash crash few months ago. The expectations were simple. Hold a press conference to demonstrate how the “Collision Warning with Auto Brake” feature on the Swedish model of the Volvo S60 worked, send it towards a stationary truck at 35k/hr, and use the tremendous new technology to stop the car without human interaction.

The truck was placed. Cameras rolled. The S60 achieved its speed. It just forgot to stop.



Volvo, their tested S60, and their reputation for building safe vehicles took a dent when, to the amused surprise of the onlooking press, the vehicle slammed into the back of the truck it was intended to avoid. The official word from Volvo was that there was human error involved in the preparation of the demonstration.

Amidst chuckles from the crowd, the Volvo MC could only say, “So ladies and gentlemen, we’ve had some kind of mishap in the testing here. I apologize for that. This car actually contains collision avoidance technology obviously not demonstrated in this crash.”

Source: Volvo News

Wear Your Seat Belt - New Ads by Embrace Life

1. The video started with a happy guy playing like a kid with steering wheel with his family. Then, all of sudden, the face of the man changed and this encourage the family members come and secure him. This is really great analogy and creative video on seatbelt wearing made by Embrace Life.

2. This also the quality of advertisement that we need in Malaysia. 1.5 millions views on Youtube is not something ordinary. The most important thing is please wear your seatbelt!

Creative Combination of Car Parts and Furniture

1. I love this photo. The "vehicle" looks fun to ride. Below are some more photos of creative combination of car parts and furniture. Enjoy!



For More Photos

Buying Cheap Quality Tyres and Batteries Online

1. Studies of tyre safety show that maintaining proper tyre pressure, observing tyre and vehicle load limits, and inspecting tyres for cuts, slashes, and other irregularities are the most important things you can do to avoid tyre failure, such as tread separation or blowout and flat tyres. These actions, along with other care and maintenance activities, can also improve vehicle handling, help protect you and others from avoidable breakdowns, improve fuel economy, increase the life of your tyres and most importantly to avoid accidents!

2. Many of us are ignoring the fact that good quality tyres also will ensure your car safety. I know good quality tyres on the regular market are really expensive. But have you ever thought of buying them online? Tyre Online Company providing you not only cheap (discount up to 40%) quality tyres but also free mobile fitting, whether at home or work and of course with fully guaranteed tyres fitting and balancing.

3. Besides getting cheap price, the other advantage of buying them online is saving your time. As a matter of fact, many of us are too busy with work and often forget to change the tyres. So by buying them online, at least you don’t have to leave your office because the service will come to the front of your office door. How convenient.

4. Apart from that, the company is not only selling tyres but also car batteries. They are usually come with a good deal package. Personally car battery is also as important as car tyres in term of car safety. But I will talk more about it later. For now, please check your car tyres frequently and make sure you buy only good quality tyres.

What is Brake Fade and How to Overcome It

1. I'm currently at Sabah, investigating 2 cases, which is one at Lahad Datu (Tipper lorry vs Glue Tanker 4 died) and one at Penampang (Iswara hit roadside barrier 3 died). But this post is made specially to discuss Proton Iswara case which I think very interesting one: brake fade.

2. What is brake fade? Brake fade manifests itself by a spongy feel on the pedal and has little of no braking force at all. But please don't confuse brake fade with bad brakes or a mechanical fault since the brake fade is unexpected event that can occur to all kind of vehicles; new or old. You are more likely to experience brake fade if you do not change the brake fluid frequently.

3. When Will You Experience Brake Fade? Brake fade is usually happening when you are driving downhill. When you use your brakes you are converting the forward momentum of the car into heat. The heat will build up on the disks where it will be dissipated into the air. As a result your brake disk will turn up red and little smoke will be visible. When the brake disk is hot, it losts its sturdy property (softer) and thus, the brake grip lessen.

4. On this case, the distance between the accident site and the peak of the mountenous road stretch is about 14km. The victim car was travelling downhill and during those 14km distance, he would keep pressing his car brake. And 500 metres before the very acute corner of accident site, it was at least 11 degrees slope road. People who are not common with the road stretch would not be prepared with this kind of sudden high slope and acute corner. Thus, my hypothesis is when the victim tried to apply his brake, the brake was already in the state of brake fade and ended up the car went straight hit the roadside barrier. Morever, no sign of any skid marks before the point of impact with the barrier.

5. Above is the picture of passing by car during my investigation on the site. I found out there was a little smoke came out from its front wheel which indicated that the brake was already in brake fade condition. It was not only this car, I found out like every 8 out of 10 passing by vehicles have a little smoke on their wheels.

6. If you watch carefully on the photo above, there was a memorial stone at the point of impact site. According to locals, the case is not the first one, as many similar accidents occured at the very place before and already took so many lives.


7. How to Avoid Brake Fade? To avoid brake fade, do not keep your brakes on frequently when driving downhill, change into a lower gear and let the engine maintain a safe speed of the car. Rather than brake heavily at the very last minute, try to spread your breaking over a longer distance. An emergency stop from 70km/h is sometimes enough to cause brake fade. So jab the brakes quite hard at first and kill most of your forward momentum, the speed you are travelling at will help the disks to dissipate the heat and then reapply the brakes more gently bringing the car to a stop. If you have made heavy use of your brakes always assume that fade will manifest itself for the next few minutes and thus increase your distance from the car behind and keep your speed down a little.

8. Hopefully this post will help you all to understand the hazard of brake fade and teach you to be more careful when driving downhill. Let's share this info to everyone.

Reference

How to Check Your Car Tyre Expiry?

1. Do you know that your tires has expiry date.....Good thing you know that, but in case you miss out some info, I'll help you. To start with, vehicle tires have a 4-year validity period from their Date of Manufacture (DOM). Thereafter, the tire expires and may burst whilst in use. See how severe this problem is if you don't notice it in advance.

2. How to find out whether your tire has expired? First, check for a stamp like this: (*4002*). There is an asterisk at the beginning and at the end of this serial number (Some tires don't have asterisk).

3. The first two numbers 4 0 will tell which week of the year has it been manufactured. Note: One year has 52 weeks. The last two numbers represent the year of make. Therefore, *4002* shows that the said tire is manufactured in the 40th week of the year 2002. *4099* this shows that the tire is made in the 40th week of 1999.

4. Check all your tires for safety purposes. Do not use expired tires. They are likely to burst (especially when running in hot weather) because the rubber component may have hardened and cracked.

How Air Brake Works?

1. First we have to understand that air is everywhere, even you were hiding inside the coffin, you could still feel the air, am i right? However hydraulic press parts that use fluid isn't. Am i right?

2. Trains, buses and tractor-trailers use air-brake systems so they don’t have to rely on the hydraulic fluid in car braking systems, which can run out in the event of a leak. All of these types of transportation are weighed down by heavy passenger or cargo loads, so safety is of the utmost importance. A speeding locomotive that relied on hydraulic press rebuild or liquid brake would turn into a deadly steel bullet if the brake system suddenly busted a leak. There are 3 major steps on using air brake:

3. Charging: The system must be pressurized with air before the brakes will release. At rest, the brakes remain engaged. Once the system reaches its operating hydraulic press, the brakes are freed and ready to use.

4. Applying: As the brakes are applied, air pressure decreases. As the amount of air decreases, the valve allows air back into the reservoir tanks, while the brakes move to the applied position.

5. Releasing: Once the brakes are applied and the air escapes after braking, the increased pressure releases the brakes.

6. Diagram above shows the foundation brakes, which are the most common air-brake systems found in trucks and buses and work the same way as in rail cars. Using the triple-valve principle, air builds up inside the brake pipes or air lines, releasing the brakes. Virtually all of the roadgoing vehicles equipped with air brakes have a graduated release system where a partial increase in pressure dictates a proportional release in brakes.

How Airbags Work?

1. For years, the trusty seat belt provided the sole form of passive restraint in our cars. There were debates about their safety, especially relating to children, but over time, much of the country adopted mandatory seat-belt laws. Statistics have shown that the use of seatbelts has saved thousands of lives that might have been lost in collisions.

2. How about an airbags? What an airbag wants to do is to slow the passenger's speed to zero with little or no damage. The constraints that it has to work within are huge. The airbag has the space between the passenger and the steering wheel or dashboard and a fraction of a second to work with. Even that tiny amount of space and time is valuable, however, if the system can slow the passenger evenly rather than forcing an abrupt halt to his or her motion.

3. The goal of an airbag is to slow the passenger's forward motion as evenly as possible in a fraction of a second. There are three parts to an airbag that help to accomplish this feat:

4. The bag itself is made of a thin, nylon fabric, which is folded into the steering wheel or dashboard or, more recently, the seat or door.

5. The sensor is the device that tells the bag to inflate. Inflation happens when there is a collision force equal to running into a brick wall at 10 to 15 miles per hour (16 to 24 km per hour) or in other delta V. A mechanical switch is flipped when there is a mass shift that closes an electrical contact, telling the sensors that a crash has occurred. The sensors receive information from an accelerometer built into a microchip.

6. The airbag's inflation system reacts sodium azide (NaN3) with potassium nitrate (KNO3) to produce nitrogen gas. Hot blasts of the nitrogen inflate the airbag.

7. So this is basic idea you need to know. I'll post more about airbag, the consequence of airbag during the crash.

Modified NGV Burst and Killed a Person at Malacca

1. Shocked! As reported in the news, a trader who turned COOKING GAS CYLINDER into a natural gas vehicle (NGV) storage unit to power his van died hours after the tank exploded at a petrol station. The explosion is believed to have been caused by a spark from the engine, which was running at that time. The self-modified cooking gas cylinder was placed under the driver's seat and covered with a canvas. Looks how creative Malaysian is. This is one example of creativity that leads to deaths.

2. After reading the news report, a member of OSHA (Daud Sulaiman) has written things to differ the reason for the explosion written in the news. These are the facts which obviously are not available to the reporters.

3. An LPG cylinder is designed to maximum 20 bar - or 300 psi, to contain liquefied Propane (70%) and Butane (30%). The pressure only comes from the propane, as the butane has almost no pressure. Check your cigarette lighter. Pressure can build up only if the liquid is vaporised.

4. This is important. The NGV cylinder is something like a BA (breathing apparatus), with similar pressures. The steel tank is normally designed for 200 bar - or 3,000 psi, 10 times the pressure for the LPG! If you want more gas, you will have to use an even higher pressure but that will increase the thickness of the cylinder required, and the weight will become prohibitive. In which case, composite material is the alternative.

5. What happened in this incident is that the LPG sphere was filled beyond its capacity and exploded - this is a physical explosion! The gas released was ignited almost immediately by the engine which was running - and this caused a second fire explosion! But the timing could be very fast and almost simultaneous. Most people would not have identified it as 2 explosions.

6. As a result the public must be made aware of the fact that any LPG cylinder is 10 times inferior to the NGV cylinder, in terms of pressure. Use the LPG cylinder, and you will have a time bomb in your hands.

A Little Fact on Car Torsion Beam Suspension

1. Recently I have posted a crash that involves Toyota Vios and the palma tree where the car become bananized after hitting the tree. You can find the post from HERE.

2. I would like to thank Aminashaari for providing feedback and info as follows:

Actually it's the not the break system that's the issue. The problem lies in the inherent characteristics of torsion beam suspension system that loads up the front end of the car during hard braking. Torsion beam suspension (featured in most entry level cars to save cost and space - including the Toyota Vios) provides a simple, laterally strong solution to rear suspension systems of budget and compact cars.

The downside is that this simple suspension configuration tends to exaggerate load transfer to the front end during hard braking making the rear end very light and prone to loosing traction. In the hands of a novice driver, this can be dangerous. Though I haven't seen the CCTV footage, from your description (pivoting under braking), sounds like a textbook case of brake induced oversteer.

Short wheelbase hatchbacks are more prone to this than booted sedans with similar setup. It is safe to conclude that the car entered the corner at high speed and understeered due to the wet conditions. Typical to normal drivers, he would lift off from the throttle, jammed on the brakes and at the same time over corrected the steering to compensate for the understeer.

Current models with similar suspension setup (that I know of):

Proton Savvy
Perodua MyVi
Honda Jazz
Honda City
Toyota Yaris
Nissan Latio

3. In short, whatever car you have, please be more careful, especially during wet and raining time. But to think that in this case only car to be blamed is unfair coz the road design and road furniture also have big weight on this problem too. Lots to be done, and lots to be addressed on the road safety issues. Slowly but surely. Lets hope for a better future.

Cheap Honda Car Parts Sell USA

1. Are you looking for cheap Honda Car Parts sell? I have no choice but to disappoint you because I think you got a wrong place for that. But I can ensure that you have come to the more interesting area and will benefits your life greatly. That’s a road safety education campaign lesson. Yeah there is a Honda crash you need to see. So be careful when you drive your lovely Honda eh.

2. From the picture, we can see that all the front of Honda Parts was broken off on the post-crash condition. What do you think it collided with? Come on, please guess. Huh you guys are really shy and static. Well, the Honda car was crashing head on with another tough car, Toyota Altis. But too bad, I don’t have the picture of the remaining crashed Toyota Altis.

3. But as far as I remembered, the Toyota Auto Parts condition was about the same with the red Honda. For me, their crash was compatible each other but unluckily for some reason, the crash took 3 deaths, might be due to high velocity impact. The accident was happening when Toyota Altis tried to overtake another car at the sharp corner with double line and ending up having frontal collision with Honda.

4. So lesson of the day, don’t ever try to overtake at double line ok, it is dangerous, not solely to you but also to other road users. Remember your loved ones!

How Car Suspension Works?

1. Yesterday a good friend of mine asked me on what’s actually car suspension doing? The reason of the question is because her car didn’t pass the annual inspection due to problem on the car suspension. Pity her. Well, as far as I know the system will absorb the force from rough road for the occupants to have comfortable journey.

2. Also it will make the car safer as the suspension will help during braking and maneuvering. But one thing for sure, if you changed your default suspension by custom suspension accessories, more severe condition will be result in if crash happened.

3. Even though I’m quite happy with the answer I gave to her but really I want to explore more and justify my own answers. So I checked auto accessories online on the term “how suspension works” and found quite useful info about car suspension.

4. The answer I got from internet is actually about what I understand before, not swaying so much, so I feel relieve. “You said we will get more severe condition if changed default suspension but how about if we change our billet to make them look nice?” Cmon bro, the custom billet accessories are not in the car system, they are there just for showing and make the car looks nice. So NO, they wont make the crash more severe.

Car Spare Part: Is It Really Important?

1. We hear a lot of people talking doubt about the integrity of any car parts sold in the market. Some said, “This is from Taiwan, cheap but not good”, others said, “Go buy spare parts from Japan, good originality even it is used parts”. The question is, is it really important on our cars?

2. You have to be brainwashed or got slapped on the face if you said NO. Why? Ok let me give you some example. Do you know why people prefer to buy sedan car rather than 4WD vehicle? Most of you already know but I want to clarify it more. One of many reasons is because even the price of the 4WD somewhat is cheaper or affordable, the vehicle spare parts are really expensive. It’s really killing your yearly budget.

3. Next question is which one is better, is it new or used car parts? I have a Honda Civic car and personally I prefer new car parts. Even though the price is ridiculous, well I mean expensive compare to used car parts we got from scrap yard, I feel much safer driving on newly car parts.

4. So it is better to use new parts and what I mean by new car parts is not something that coming from Taiwan, which is kind of so crappy even it is new. Look for original parts from the car maker or go buy from Japan or country where the car is made. You can seek for money, but please remember this, your life is priceless.