NHTSA Complaint #11666635 — 2018 HONDA ACCORD

On 2025-06-12 at about 3:50 PM EST I triggered a remote start command from my phone via the HondaLink app to cool down the car before leaving work. When I went out to the car it had not started. I assumed the command had simply failed, so I returned home and parked in our attached 2-car garage at around 5:10 PM. At about 6:30 PM I opened the door between the house and the garage and heard an engine running. The car was found to have spontaneously started itself. I do not know precisely how long it had been running. It took me a couple seconds to recognize the situation and the danger, and once I realized what had happened I immediately closed the door to prevent carbon monoxide from entering our house. I tried accessing HondaLink to shut down the vehicle remotely but the app gave a message "Services Currently Unavailable". In order to safely shut it down, I opened the garage doors, waited a couple minutes for the garage to ventilate, then quickly moved in and shut down the engine while avoiding breathing in. We noticed a smell of fumes in our house near the connecting door. Both keys were in static locations (not in pockets, etc. where the buttons could have been accidentally pressed). They had been that way since I got home. I believe that HondaLink's servers sent the remote command to my vehicle *significantly later* than the command was requested. This is a major problem and safety checks should prevent a delayed command from having an effect on the vehicle, especially when dealing with engine start commands. The carbon monoxide buildup fortunately seemed to be minimal, although I am again unclear exactly how long the engine had been running. The vehicle will normally shut itself off 10 minutes after a remote start. However, the most dangerous situation would have been if the car shut itself off and then someone entered the garage shortly afterward without realizing that the vehicle had been running.