A massive recall impacts Honda’s most popular models built between early 2021 and September 2024.
American Honda has a new and wide-sweeping recall campaign for 1.7 million examples of its most popular vehicles, according to documents it filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration earlier this month and a press release the company put out on the matter. Certain 2022-2025 model year Honda and Acura vehicles could have improperly manufactured steering gearboxes, and over time those units could experience too much internal friction. As you’d expect, that friction can increase steering effort and difficulty for the driver, increasing the risk of a crash.
Specifically, Honda blames the “worm wheel” within the steering gearbox that can swell from heat during use. That can “reduce the grease film thickness between the worm wheel and worm gear”, resulting in abnormal noise or “sticky” steering while the wheel is turned. The automaker also mentions that the preload of the worm gear spring was sweat too high, which also increases friction and torque fluctuation while the driver is trying to steer the vehicle.
The problem affects approximately 1,693,199 vehicles, according to Honda’s manufacturing records. Those models include
- 2023-2025 Acura Integra (including 2024-2025 Type S)
- 2022-2025 Honda Civic (sedan and hatchback, non-hybrid and hybrid models)
- 2023-2025 Honda Civic Type R
- 2023-2025 Honda CR-V (including gas, hybrid and FCEV (hydrogen) models)
- 2023-2025 Honda HR-V
What’s the fix?
Honda says it first received complaints of the problematic steering gearboxes in September 2021. It did not start investigating the problem until more than a year later in November 2022, however, when it first received a “market quality report” on the issue. The NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation (ODI) opened its own probe in March 2023 to determine the scale of the defect.
According to the chronology report filed with the NHTSA, Honda revised the worm wheel mold process in July 2023. That didn’t ultimately fix the issue, though, as a quality report on August 20, 2024 found that its “investigation of more recently returned parts found the condition to be at an increased level (emphasis added) compared to that found with parts recovered in the past.”
American Honda announced the recall through its own press release on October 9, where it also mentioned customers would received mailed notifications on November 18. Owners can work out whether their car is included in the campaign through the NHTSA’s recall website or Honda’s own recall website (or the Acura recall site, if you own an Integra).
Dealer technicians will replace the worm gear spring with a new part and redistribute grease, where needed. In its attempt to fix the problem, Honda’s supplier revised the worm wheel pressure angle (where the wheel teeth meet the worm gear), the spring load specification and the grease application process. Steering gearboxes with the new and improved parts were integrated into vehicle production on August 30, so vehicles built after that date should not have this problem moving forward.
