NHTSA Complaint #11545247 — 2013 HONDA ACCORD

I purchased this car from Trickett Honda in June 2013. The mileage on 9/11/23 was 23,602 (the day of the rear wheel hub bearing repair). This car was used primarily by my wife and driven mostly in town for short trips (14 to 25 miles round trip to and from home), seldom trips to Nashville and back. My wife started complaining about what she called “road noise” 4 or 5 years ago. I occasionally drove the car and it was loud, but I thought it might just be tires, but the tires looked OK. I do remember being on the interstate hwy at 75 and noticed a high noise level. My wife recently had to drive her brother to Nashville for doctor appointments and he told her he thought the noise was from a bad wheel bearing. So, I started searching on Google for 2013 Honda Accord noise problems and found many references. One was a Honda Engineering Request for Investigation (copy attached). In order to qualify the VIN must start with 1HG (my vin). It said to call Technical Research & Support at 800-880-1072 and I did. TRS told me to contact Music City Honda and I gave them the info (case number etc.) and they told me they knew nothing about Honda requesting that they look at the car. The guy I talked with said they would charge $150 just to get in the car and drive it. So, I called Gallatin Honda, got transferred to the service dept., told to leave a message and they never called back. So, I called Murfreesboro Honda and the service guy said it would cost $450 labor plus parts to fix one rear wheel bearing. I took it to Hight’s Auto repair and Mr. Hight got in with me and drove the car and told me the noise was from one or both rear hub bearings and it was just one and he fixed it for $325.67 (invoice attached). He said we are lucky that nothing bad happened (like the wheel coming off). He gave me the bad wheel hub bearing in case Honda wants it. Apparently Honda knows about this problem and is not fixing it. There is something wrong with a bearing that goes bad this quick.