Longer Term Reliability?

I could feel it in the steering wheel not the pedal.

 

after I wash my car, when I back out of my garage (downhill slightly) I hear the brakes scraping... like, its scraping rust off the rotors. It only does this after I wash it.

 

That is completely normal. It will do the same thing if the car sits for a few days and it rains. Rotors are made of iron and will rust quickly. When you wash the car obviously water is sprayed directly on the rotors when you wash the wheels. It doesn't take long for rust to accumulate especially with the cleaners used on the wheels. When you apply the brakes the rust is removed by the pads which is the noise you are hearing.

 

Hi. About your question, it is a HONDA! ; D
I'm just purchased a 2018 Clarity on a Auction (I didn't pick up the car yet) with a minor to moderate front damage. No airbags deployed! Before that, I was looking Claritys on the web and I just found another 2018 with 206k+ miles. Yes!, 206000! I uploading a pic to show you it.

 

Were you able to inspect your Clarity in person before bidding? Did you have much competition for your Clarity from other bidders? Does it have fewer than 206,000 miles on the odometer? Did it come with a salvage title or a regular title? I had one other question, but I was just told lunch is ready so no time to type it out.

 

Reminds me of a quote from Epictetus...

 

Would be interesting to know what the battery capacity was on the 206,000 mile car.

On that topic, we have people come on here sometimes who are looking to buy a used Clarity, might be worth suggesting to them that they purchase a $30 VGate iCar Pro BLE 4.0 OBD-II reader and free Car Scanner app to take with them when they check out prospective cars. Battery capacity would be valuable information to have prior to purchase. And even if they don't wind up getting a Clarity they can use the OBD-II reader on any car if they didn't have one already.

 

I did a request to inspect the car. I had like 7 other bidders for the car. (2018 touring with 35k miles, 1 owner. Geico purchased the car from original owner after they paid off for the accident. "light to moderate" damage to front. No airbags deployed or structural damage. I can upload pics if you want. Now it has a Salvage title. Usually all my cars are salvage including with flooding titles. (Salvage cars are not for everyone, specially if you are afraid of or if you have the money to pay for the real retail value. I paid 8700 for the car plus fees (About 10k total), plus 700 to get it shipped from NJ to FL. Less than 2k in used and new parts. (I'm really good finding parts and fixing but I'm not a mechanic, jut a DIY but very picky and I know mechanic and body repair ;D
Buy a Clarity was out of my pocket if I try to buy used (same car sells for about ....19k+?) so saving around 6 grands is a must!

 

No, that article says it has two motors. Many writers don't seem to realize (or don't think it important to mention) that a motor is also a generator. In fact, a 2013 paper delivered by Honda to a World Electric Vehicle Association conference in Barcelona, about the Accord PHEV (the predecessor of the Clarity) was titled "Efficiency Enhancement of a New Two-Motor Hybrid System."

So, like all iMMD hybrids, this one has two motor-generators. The larger one, which is the only one that drives the wheels, is rated for 181 HP. The smaller is used primarily as a generator, and to start the ICE.

So the electrical power system (the battery plus the ICE-driven generator) need to supply at least 181/0.85=212 HP.

See

(and ignore that he calls it E-Drive, and several other mistakes about operation).

 

Old thread, but I thought I'd pop in here and give some info on these cars since they're kind of uncharted territory as far as high mileage goes.

I just bought a 2018 Clarity with 90k miles on it for $15,000. I noticed that it wouldn't take a charge when I was at the dealership but I'm new to PHEV/EV/hybrids and figured it was because the dealer wasn't using a Honda charger.

Long story short, the car wouldn't take a charge at all and needed about $8k in repairs. Tech said it needed a new charger control module and it was buried deep behind the dash. The part itself was $4,600.

During research online, I actually found the PO and he had the exact same experience. He was the original owner and put 90k on the car and traded it when the dealer he took it to (a different dealer, btw) also said it would be $8k to fix.

The dealership took the car back, thankfully. But this experience has made me very leery to try PHEV/EV/hybrids again. If that module and the battery needed to be replaced (or some other random and expensive repair), the car would be totaled. Which is a shame because it was a super clean car and a wonderful car, at that.

Sorry to be a bummer, guys, but this is my story.

 

I was under the impression that Honda warranted the hybrid traction battery and hybrid electrical components for 8 years/100k miles (longer for California and states that have adopted California's ZEV standards). I bought a 120k/10yr warranty, so I haven't worried about it, but that's what I had thought. Pretty sure GM covers the Volt and Bolt like that. Regardless, I haven't had a single problem to fix on the Clarity (other than eventually probably getting the fuel pump impeller problem fixed when parts are available), nearly 60k and 6 years so far. As to an $8k repair problem, that can show up in a lot of cars when one or two of the right items fail, labor and parts are expensive (again, the reason I decided to pay the $1600 for the extended warranty). My son just had a water pump fail at 80k miles and while they had the car in for that repair, they wanted to replace the oil pan gasket. Quoted him about $5k total for both items. He opted for leaving the oil pan gasket alone (it seems to just be seeping), and talked them down to closer to $1500 for the water pump. My other son had a head unit fail in his car just after the warranty expired. Was going to be over $5k. Luckily the dealership talked the manufacturer to cover it under warranty. Fixing any car can get expensive (or drive you to dump them instead).

 

@Cams
Yes, it should be covered under warranty.
If they repaired this for free, it could still be a good deal.
Here is the relevant page from the warranty manual:

 

Acquired my 2019 in 2022 with 96K on it. Now has 140,744 on the clock. Batt Cap is down to 41.64 AH and according to the local Honda dealer when it was in for a service 2 days ago, the 12V batt has tested "bad." I'll run my own test on that this weekend, but for now, all is well. The Clarity has caused no problems of any sort, beyond occasional quarks of Android Auto not booting up properly or "freezing."

 

Previous owner said he couldn't get Honda to pay for it. That's why he traded it.

And I would think the dealership would have thought about that over the three days this was going on. No one wanted me to keep the car more than they did.

I appreciate that screenshot though. Maybe it can help someone else.

 

@Cams , any indication from the previous owner as to why Honda wouldn't cover it under the warranty?

 

"I was told by Honda America that my vehicle was not under warranty and that because I didn't have an extended warranty that there was nothing that Honda could do."

 

You are probably sick of it by now, but this is a totally unsatisfactory answer.
The screenshot is from the official Honda warranty document. I can attach the whole thing, but perhaps it is moot now.

They need to explain why it is not covered when it specifically states that it is covered in their own warranty document !