Help! I just bought a brand-new 2013 Honda Fit Sport Automatic (traded in my 2009 Fit Sport Nav). I picked it up on Saturday (July 20) at a dealer in a nearby town (because they gave me a MUCH better price than the local dealer). 20 miles into my ride home, the SRS (Supplemental Restraint System, aka airbag system) light on the dash came on and has stayed on ever since. Rather than drive 65 miles back to the selling dealer, I took it in this morning to the local dealer to have it looked at.

After having it all day, they told me that the system was "throwing some weird codes" and that they had to call Honda to help. Honda was apparently stumped as well, but THOUGHT it MIGHT be radio interference from my portable GPS, which I plugged in before I left the selling dealer on Saturday. Their SUGGESTION was to unplug it and drive for a few days to see if that fixed the problem. (Keep in mind that they also told me that as long as the SRS light is on, I have no functioning airbags!)

By the way, a few weeks BEFORE I bought my new Fit, I purchased the GPS and plugged it into my '09 Fit. Since I had decided NOT to pay $2,000 extra for the Nav system this time, I wanted to get familiar with the portable GPS. I had been driving around for about a month in my old Fit with the GPS plugged in and located in the same spot on the dash. The local dealer said my old Fit probably didn't have the upgraded OPDS system. (I asked if Honda had re-designed their system to ensure you had to buy their Nav, but he denied that. Of course, when I asked how I was supposed to get GPS in my new car, his answer was "I dunno.")

Has anyone heard of this? Is this legit? If so, how CAN I use a GPS system with my new Fit? Any help/info would be greatly appreciated.

 

Never heard of such a thing. Dealership explanation sounds ridiculous.

If removing the GPS solves the problem I will be amazed, but let us know. Sounds like they don't want to (or don't have time to) dig into electrical problems for warranty work and are blowing you off.

 

That's kind of what I thought. They especially don't want to do warranty work for someone from their city who has now bought 4 Hondas from the dealer 65 miles away! I'm thinking of calling my salesman from the other dealer tomorrow and asking him to talk to their service department. I think he'll find an answer for me.

 

It would take a few seconds to un-plug the GPS and find out just by driving. Why all the resistance?

 

Having been involved with 2 way radio, and the amateur radio hobby for many years, I can tell you what they say is a possibility. I have never seen a dealership that had enough knowledge to diagnose or repair that kind RF problem.

Take out the GPS and read the road signs if you can not find your way around your own town without it. After a week or two you should be able to tell if that GPS was causing the problem.

 

loudbang, it's not simply a matter of a few seconds to unplug the GPS and drive to see if it works. They told me it might take a few days of driving before the SRS system would reset. When I pressed them for exactly how long, they were very vague: "Drive it for three or four days and see if that helps." I'm really concerned that Honda's suggestion was for me to continue driving WITH NO WORKING AIRBAGS just to see if it MIGHT fix the problem.

n9cv, so if it really IS the GPS causing the problem, what is the solution? Is there something I can connect to my GPS that would block the RF interference?

 

I think RF interference from a GPS is unlikely, though not completely impossible. GPS, in itself, does not involve any radio transmission by the GPS receiver; it's purely a one-way system. Furthermore, the RF levels involved are very slight, so any excessive radiation by the GPS unit (at least on the frequencies in question) would very seriously hamper its usability.

While I highly doubt not using the GPS will affect anything, temporarily removing it does seem like the easiest way to get the dealer to honor the warranty. For what it's worth, I've been using a portable GPS in my 2012—which is mechanically identical to the 2013s—and have observed no car electrical problems at all.

(I'm assuming you are not referring to the "airbag off" light next to the radio, nor the "side airbag off" light on the instrument cluster, but rather the general "airbag system isn't working" light on the dashboard.)

 

DrewE, you're probably right. Unplugging the GPS and driving for awhile might be the only way to convince this dealer to dig deeper to find the problem. And yes, I'm talking about the SRS light (the red one on the instrument cluster that indicates a problem with the entire airbag/seatbelt system). It's the light that's supposed to blink (with a chime) if you don't fasten your seatbelts. Because it's on all the time, I no longer get the seatbelt chime either.

Do you think it's possible that the interference would be caused by the separate "traffic" antenna built into the power cord for my Garmin GPS? The traffic feature doesn't really help me most of the time, because I don't live near any major city. If that's the offending part, I could probably replace the power cord with one without the traffic antenna. Thoughts?

UPDATE: I called the dealer to see if I could get the "weird codes" that the airbag system was allegedly producing. (I thought if I had the codes, I could do an internet search and find some possible solutions.) This time, I was told that they "couldn't get in to the airbag system." So the "weird codes" were actually non-existent? Now I'm really confused.

 

Uh now they've been caught making stuff up. Go to a different dealer.

I'd probably remove the GPS so it's not part of the discussion, but I agree, it's not a transmitter; any RF interference it produces would be minimal, probably less than the car's radio. And the airbag controller should be shielded against such interference.

My uneducated guess is the SRS controller is bad; not being able to query stored codes is an indication. As it's a safety issue they should be jumping all over it. If you're unhappy with the response contact the Honda regional manager (customer service # in your manual).

 

My car is actually still at this dealer, because they also didn't fix the other minor problem I asked them to fix yesterday. When I called the dealer this morning, I told them I wanted to know who at Honda had suggested I drive with no airbags, because my next-of-kin might want that information after I was killed in an accident when my airbags didn't deploy. For some reason, he got really snippy with me after that. He did give me the Customer Service #, and I now have a case opened. Since my car is still at the dealer, they're going to contact the dealer and work with them to fix my car. Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

It's hilarious that the first thing most dealerships do when the possibility of warranty work comes up is point at something YOU did. My most recent experience the first thing I was asked if I lived in the country and it was suggested mice or small animals might be the problem before the car was even in the bay, stupid "service advisors" (not the Fit).

Stay on top of things, customer service is dead. Remember most service advisers have very little technical knowledge and are just salesmen.

 

GPS or any other electrical device generated noise can enter the vehicle system not only by RF over the air, but also on the 12 volt power system in the vehicle.

The noise generator does not have to be a transmitter. I have a Blazer that the automatic heater fan control generates noise on various frequencies. It is not the traditional fan motor brush noise. Two new free control units fro GM did not help. I gave up trying to eliminate it. At least I can turn off the fan when it is bothersome.

GM use to publish an excellent manual on isolating and insulating electrical and RF interference in their vehicles.

Again, In my opinion the best thing to do is remove the GPS and prove to Honda that they still have a problem. I frankly think they are blowing smoke.

 

It's a safety issue and completely unacceptable. GPS receiver is absolutely not the cause. If it were, airbags everywhere would be going nuts driving through electrical fields, being constantly bombarded by high power RF. I'm a ham too, and an EE and that story they gave you is total BS. Call corporate now. Don't accept this.

 

komafit, I have already called Honda Customer Service, and they have opened a case to work with the dealer to get it fixed. This afternoon, the dealer called and said they had ordered some parts that would be here Monday. (So I guess they DID find some problem other than my GPS. He couldn't give me any specifics, though, because the service guy who called was not the one who had been working on my Fit. The one who knew what was going on conveniently got called away but asked this other guy to call me. Yeah, right.)

I told them that I would have to have a car for the weekend. "Oh, I'm sorry. All our loaners and rentals are checked out. We don't have any left." So, I called my Honda Customer Service representative back. She called the dealer and called me back in about 15 minutes. Wouldn't you know it? During that 15 minutes, someone returned one of their rental units, and I can have it for the weekend! Wow, this dealer is just full of coincidences, isn't it??????????

So far, I've gotten to drive my new Fit only 4 days, and it's already been in the shop for three (plus the weekend). I really hope they get it fixed on Monday. I'll keep you all posted. I just really want them to tell me point-blank that they were wrong about the GPS, but I doubt that will happen.

 

I have GPS in my radio. No problem. I had a seperate GPS and GPS on my phone for my long drive over the holidays.

ZERO issues.


Call your selling dealership, tell them how local dealerships are jerking your chain, and ask them to either call the local ones for you, or have them look at your car. Its FREE. WARRANTY!!

 

GREAT job on keeping their feet to the fire and getting a loaner.

 

Well, apparently the part they ordered was the SRS Control Unit. It arrived this morning, and they're installing it now. The service rep just called me, though, and said he doesn't want his people "rushing" to get the part in. He wants time to install it correctly and then extra time to test it again to make sure all the problems are resolved. So, he's keeping my car one more day to make sure everything is OK and they can test it again tomorrow.

As much as I want to get my car back, I appreciate him trying to make sure that everything is perfect before returning my car. I did ask him, "So, it really didn't have anything to do with my GPS, right?" He stammered around and said something like "Well, we had to rule that out before we could find out what was really wrong." Yeah, right. Oh, well, my new car should be "good as new" again tomorrow!

 

Service Advisors are always quite imaginative. I'm pretty sure Creative Writing is a prerequisite class to employment. The loaner should not have even been an issue, they should have rented you a car third-party if they didn't have any loaners on the lot, I can't believe you even had to fight about that.

I am glad it is getting resolved and good job not taking any gruff from those swine.

 

I FINALLY got my Fit back this evening! (I've owned it for 11 days now, and 7 of those days it was stuck at the dealer. Ugh.) Everything seems to be working fine now, after they replaced the SRS control unit. Even with my GPS plugged in, there is no more "interference." I'm so glad to finally have my baby back. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there will be no more problems.