[pineapple_ameet]

This is their standard SOP. don't lose hope because of this...
Just Tweet it! And mention that you've already sent this mail too and still no headway. When you tweet do include both - the Honda India and Honda global accounts.
Telling you by personal experience -

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-...-4l-awd-4.html (Heart over head! My pre-owned Honda CR-V 2.4L AWD)

Originally Posted by praveesh4u

As I mentioned earlier, in my experience, Honda Cars India's escalation team is a joke. They'll just redirect you back to the same ASC and ask you to get the issues resolved.
This is how the last escalation ended up.
Attachment 2237858

A bot would have drafted a better reply!

[praveesh4u]

Originally Posted by pineapple_ameet

This is their standard SOP. don't lose hope because of this...
Just Tweet it! And mention that you've already sent this mail too and still no headway. When you tweet do include both - the Honda India and Honda global accounts.
Telling you by personal experience -

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/test-...-4l-awd-4.html (Heart over head! My pre-owned Honda CR-V 2.4L AWD)

At this point, I am inclined to believe that the denial of the said part's replacement under warranty is Honda's own policy and the dealership has nothing much to do about it. I had an informal talk with a "Honda guy" and what he said was that initially, the dealership was giving replacements under warranty for the engine mounts based on the oil leakage observed and the harshness reported by the customers. Then, Honda observed that the number of such replacements was on the increase and decided that no need to replace the engine mounts based on oil leakage.

The guy even told me that "Honda did a study on this". This is the part that I fail to understand. Going by the schemas and the videos found online, a hydraulic mount contains a fluid-filled pressure chamber that dampens the engine vibrations. If this fluid is leaked, how is the mount supposed to work in the expected manner?

Schema:

In addition, in all the pictures that I posted above, the oil leakage is shown on the upper part of the mounting. My theory is that the rubber pressure chamber must have ruptured and forced the fluid upwards when the engine shook.
Direction of fluid leak:


To get a baseline for the cabin vibrations, I had taken vibration readings using iNVH from a brand new diesel MT amaze and then took the readings from my amaze for the same duration and plotted the graphs.
Here is the side-by-side comparison of the readings(To minimise the number of attachments, I am posting only z-axis acceleration plotted against time).

Start to idle comparison:



Zoomed engine startup.

For some reason, the brand new car's reading is more than the used car. This may be because the phone initially slipped on the steering wheel it was well polished.

Zoomed Idling

The vibration levels for the used amaze varies more than that of the brand new


Zoomed engine shutdown

Here you can see the obvious difference in the shakings. The new car with the undamaged engine mount dampens the shutdown jolting every effectively compared to the used car.


I am not sure how much of a fair comparison this is as so many factors contribute to the vibrations. However, the shutdown jolt/jerk dampening can be considered as a clear indicator.

[NYMEX]

The top engine mount of Amaze is failing regularly because the seal is weak and thus unable to withstand the oil's back pressure. It is a design fault of the seal and/or wrong material to cut down costs. Maybe it is a petrol engine seal which is unable to handle the significantly more severe vibrations of a diesel engine. It would be interesting to find out if the petrol engine mounts too are facing the same problem. Last week I changed the top front engine mount of my Corolla after 12 years & 80,000 km. An unchanged engine mount can quickly damage the other mounts as well.
Honda quality has been poor for long but it's cars are light & give good mileage, which is every Indian's first concern.

[praveesh4u]

Originally Posted by NYMEX

The top engine mount of Amaze is failing regularly because the seal is weak and thus unable to withstand the oil's back pressure. It is a design fault of the seal and/or wrong material to cut down costs. Maybe it is a petrol engine seal which is unable to handle the significantly more severe vibrations of a diesel engine. It would be interesting to find out if the petrol engine mounts too are facing the same problem.

This is the logical conclusion that one can arrive from the pattern of the oil leak. In all the cars, the leak appears on the top which would have resulted from the seal failing due to high back pressure. However, Honda doesn't seem to think this way

The petrol Amaze have a different engine mount from the diesel Amaze. I don't have any pics but from the looks it seems it is a non hydraulic rubber engine mount.

[praveesh4u]

To give more perspective about the vibrations and the shuddering when pressing/releasing the accelerator, I have shot a video of the engine while running by placing a camera inside the engine bay. The video is a bit dark due to the poor lighting conditions once the bonnet was closed. The only source of light inside the bonnet was the cycling light that I had attached to the frame. Please let me know if this sort of engine jolting is something that one is supposed to live with.

https://youtu.be/S43wq6aXk2U

[NYMEX]

The engine mount is shot and has to be changed. Try to modify the configuration of the mounting bolts of another brand diesel car and then fit it in your amaze. Only precaution is not to touch the main hydraulic cylinder and also avoid excessive cutting of the mounting's aluminum bracket else it will facture quickly at stress points.

[praveesh4u]

Originally Posted by govigov

Ask them to clearly email you that hydraulic leak is a non issue from a company email or a hard copy signed in the dealer letter head. It should have the words, 'hydraulic leak from the engine mount is a non issue' or something similar which quotes the problem that you reported.

Finally managed to get an email from the service manager that states oil seepage is normal. According to him, this was after consulting with the Honda technical team. They conveniently ignored the differences in vibration readings and the fact that the pattern of the oil spread was as if oil was forced out of the mounting upwards. They don't have any sensor based assessment of the vibrations and apparently the only vibration sensor they have is the test driver's bum.
I raised an issue through Honda's twitter handle and as usual they have started a mail chain with the service center's CRM and Service CRM with whom I have already talked.

Reply:

Originally Posted by NYMEX

The engine mount is shot and has to be changed. Try to modify the configuration of the mounting bolts of another brand diesel car and then fit it in your amaze. Only precaution is not to touch the main hydraulic cylinder and also avoid excessive cutting of the mounting's aluminum bracket else it will facture quickly at stress points.

The car is still in warranty and considering the parts quality that I have experienced, I can't do anything that would void the warranty. Honda thinks this is the normal operation and it is something the Amaze owners are destined to live with.

[fearless_IN]

After reading all the comments, I realized that Honda India is not at all taking care of its valuable customers. Honda India - All social media profiles are full of complaints, complaints, and complaints. On top of it, there is no empathy and effort from Honda India's side to address those issues.

As suggested by others in this forum, I also suggest reaching out to the top management of the organization (not only India, may headquarters if needed) to get the valid support that was promised to you when you purchased the car.

[z_3en]

One thing I too have faced (though mine being a petrol variant) is how the Honda service representatives ignore a genuine complaint with a straight face. I had an issue with the throttle response when on long journeys, but as usual they blamed me for comparing my amaze to other much more powerful cars that I own. Fast forward 8 months and Honda initiated a faulty fuel pump recall that upon heating does cause power loss in the least case and engine seize at most! All the best with you Amaze

[praveesh4u]

Originally Posted by vishy76

I am very curious to know how Honda thinks this is normal. Especially when hydraulic fluid can clearly be spotted leaking from the mount itself, even if we keep aside engine movement and shake.

I reached out to HCIL customer service and listed out my concerns with them. As usual they sent a robotic reply without addressing any of the concerns that I have raised with them. The reply conveniently skips any mention about the engine mounting or the oil leakage. Also, for the record, there was no through inspection.

Here are the concerns that I raised with them




Here is the reply from HCIL.


The complete mail chain can be accessed here.

Originally Posted by fearless_IN

After reading all the comments, I realized that Honda India is not at all taking care of its valuable customers. Honda India - All social media profiles are full of complaints, complaints, and complaints. On top of it, there is no empathy and effort from Honda India's side to address those issues.

As suggested by others in this forum, I also suggest reaching out to the top management of the organization (not only India, may headquarters if needed) to get the valid support that was promised to you when you purchased the car.

I guess this is no longer possible. I tried to mail to a few mail ids that I found online and the mails were not getting delivered. The fact that the reply that I received earlier was from a regional manager doesn't give any hopes in this direction.

Originally Posted by z_3en

One thing I too have faced (though mine being a petrol variant) is how the Honda service representatives ignore a genuine complaint with a straight face. I had an issue with the throttle response when on long journeys, but as usual they blamed me for comparing my amaze to other much more powerful cars that I own. Fast forward 8 months and Honda initiated a faulty fuel pump recall that upon heating does cause power loss in the least case and engine seize at most! All the best with you Amaze

The same thing happened with the lower arms. It was faulty and and the bush was getting worn out easily. When this was pointed out, they ignored it and now, they have come up with a revised lower arm.

[RMN]

Wow, I'm someone who has been planning on picking up a used Honda if not a new one next year and this makes me reconsider that.

Extremely disappointing, I would have generally expected manufacturers to deny these claims but do a silent recall or rectify it for the cars coming off the assembly line at least. Ignoring that also is a whole another level!

[praveesh4u]

HCIL says a cracked engine mount is pristine - A follow-up post to the Engine mount woes.

As suggested by the replies to my initial post, I got in touch with another Honda ASC and explained the situation to them. To them, the fluid leak issue and the extra vibrations were something that was not reported earlier. After taking a test drive, they acknowledged that there was a peculiar jolt when releasing the accelerator. Also, they informed me that they haven't noticed the fluid leakage on the engine mounts so far since no one has pointed out this as an issue.

I was at the ASC just to get the car inspected. So no service request was registered. Since the issue was already escalated to Honda and denied warranty claim from there, I asked them to see if the jolting and fluid leak was found in other cars as well. The floor manager at the ASC assured me that he will check this and share an update in a week. The service manager at the dealership had a diesel Amaze with similar age and Odo reading as mine. So, he said, it can be used as a reference. However, we couldn't check that car as it was not present there that day.

A week later, I got a call from the service manager of the ASC and he said that the fluid leakage was present in all the cars they checked and the jolts were present in all those cars, including his own car. However, since Honda has declared that fluid leakage in engine mounts is no longer an eligible criterion for replacement under warranty, they can't do much about it but
if I am able to record anything audible that was caused due to the jolts and extra vibrations, they can present it as proof for warranty claim.

Unfortunately, this was quite hard. There was a tuk-tuk sound now and then but it would need studio-quality setup to get it recorded. Also, the noises during gear shifts could be eliminated by releasing the clutch very slowly so, the chances that they would discard this with the claim that "it is because you release the clutch too soon" were very high.

This wasn't an unexpected outcome as by this time Honda themselves has even stopped replying to emails.

Since I wanted to get over with this headache, I decided to change the part as a paid service and asked the ASC whether they can arrange for the same and they gladly accepted. I decided on the paid replacement as I was optimistic about the improvement in the ride quality from the past two experiences. Also, there was no point in expecting something fair from HCIL as they were just blindly denying the issue.

Finally, I got the engine mount replaced on January 8th the cost of replacement including the labor charges were Rs. 5209. The cost of the engine mount is Rs. 4644.

Brand new Engine mount


Brand new Engine mount - No Leakages


Price details and the box labels


Old Engine mount



Since it was a paid replacement, the old part was given to me. I carried out a casual inspection of the old part and these are my findings.

1. The engine mounting has a visible crack on its enclosure.
   
   Crack on the engine mount
   
   
   Crack on the engine mount - Close up
   
   
   Crack on the engine mount - Zoomed
   
   
   Crack on the engine mount - Zoomed - Dust accumulation
   
   
   I don't think this is something that is acceptable for a component that shares the weight of the engine. This clearly indicates the quality of the inspection and diagnosis carried out by the first dealership and this was the reply from the Senior Escalations manager when I approached Honda.
   

   There is no abnormality is the vehicle and it is thoroughly inspected by the dealership in consultation with HCIL technical team.

   (No, I didn't make any typo, the reply is as it is.)
   
   
2. The leakage appears to be all around the axis of the mounting and above the flap that covers the hydraulic chamber. On the flap, there is a wax-like substance which I believe is the residue of the fluid leakage.
   
   Fluid leakage pattern
   
   
   Wax like substance found on the flap
   
   
   I was not able to produce any further fluid leak by applying force on the mount. However, there seem to be new fluid leakage patterns since I first visited the ASC with this issue. That time they had wiped the mounting clean and now there are new fluid stains. So, this makes me believe that there is indeed a LEAK.

Bottom line:

The crack on the engine mount was a surprise for me. The service center's audacity to declare the engine mount as non-faulty without even physically inspecting it properly and then Honda Senior Escalation manager parroting the ASC's version when the issue was escalated clearly shows the state of Honda and Honda ASCs. Honda is no longer the reliable, customer-friendly Honda that it once was

Since the Amaze's engine mount is manufactured only by Honda, even with the new engine mount, I am bound to face this issue sooner or later. So, spending 5k+ on engine mounts is going to be a periodic expense it seems. Or, I have to learn to live with it which I don't think is quite easy.


I hope more Amaze owners came up with this issue and force Honda to release a revised part.