[OSDPR18]

Hello all,

I wanted to report some problems that im having in hopes someone here can provide some guidance. I just bought a 2023 Honda Ridgeline Black Edition about a week and a half ago. Yesterday was the first day that I drove the truck for a prolonged period of time (500 mile trip). There are 6 issues right now with the truck, 2 of them being serious hazardous safety issues. I will start with the less dangerous ones: The front parking sensors stopped working, the wireless charger is not charging the phones, the talk button on the steering wheel wont recognize commands (called Honda support tech and we tried everything) and the transmission is having shift delays and shakiness. The 2 big safety issues that almost caused me to have an accident in 7 different occasions are the Adaptive Cruise Control system, this system is supposed to keep a distance between your vehicle and the vehicle in-front of you and its supposed to adapt and match the speed, the system is failing to recognize vehicles in-front of me and keeps accelerating at a constant speed without slowing down to the point of almost getting into a collision, I had to take aggressive preventive action, this happened 4 times in the last 2 days. The second big safety issue is that when im cruising in the highway with the cruise control engaged and another car merges into my lane in-front of me the Ridgeline will aggressively brake (not a normal slow down), it brakes so hard that everything inside the truck went flying and the car behind me almost crashed into me. This happens a lot, but 3 of those times in the last 2 days the cars behind me had to drive into the shoulder of the road to prevent colliding with me. Its not only with cars merging into my lane but also when I have cars in the same lane that slow down (for example from 70mph to 65mph, my truck wont recognize it until the very last second and it will aggressively brake with a lot of distance between us. I want to point out that im very familiar with how the system works, we also have a 2020 Toyota Sienna that has the same system and it does not behave like this. There is something seriously wrong with the truck and this problem can and will likely end up in an accident that can result in serious injury or death. I need Honda to make this right.

I have owned many Honda vehicles and have never had problems with them, this includes 3 CRX's (88 and 91), 1993 Honda Civic Hatchback, 2008 Honda Ridgeline, 2010 Honda Fit, 2012 Honda Civic Ex, 2012 Honda Civic Si, 2014 Honda Odyssey and now the 2023 Honda Ridgeline.

Yesterday before taking off on the long trip, the front parking sensors went off and would not stop making sound, it was constant, I took a video of it. I got off the truck thinking there was something in-front but there was nothing. I had to turn the truck OFF and then ON again and it went away but they never worked again.

I was very happy with my new Ridgeline until today, this thing turned out to be a lemon.

 

[V2500]

Welcome to the club @OSDPR18!

I have not read your entire (very long) post (yet) — but from what I have read, it seems you have a brand new truck — that’s under warranty — whatever problems you might be having would best be dealt with at a dealership under said warranty. Some of your “major safety issues” can be dealt with by reading Owners Manual and adjusting the setting. Have you even spoken to the dealership?

 

[OSDPR18]

Welcome to the club @OSDPR18!

I have not read your entire (very long) post (yet) — but from what I have read, it seems you have a brand new truck — that’s under warranty — whatever problems you might be having would best be dealt with at a dealership under said warranty. Some of your “major safety issues” can be dealt with by reading Owners Manual and adjusting the setting. Have you even spoken to the dealership?

Its a brand new truck. I called the dealer and they said I have to call tomorrow to schedule a date where I can drop it off and have it checked. I asked how long does it usually take and was told they work on the vehicles by order of arrival, so she said an estimated 1-2 weeks of wait. I can't believe this honestly.

 

[Will48121]

Hello all,

I wanted to report some problems that im having in hopes someone here can provide some guidance. I just bought a 2023 Honda Ridgeline Black Edition about a week and a half ago. Yesterday was the first day that I drove the truck for a prolonged period of time (500 mile trip). There are 6 issues right now with the truck, 2 of them being serious hazardous safety issues. I will start with the less dangerous ones: The front parking sensors stopped working, the wireless charger is not charging the phones, the talk button on the steering wheel wont recognize commands (called Honda support tech and we tried everything) and the transmission is having shift delays and shakiness. The 2 big safety issues that almost caused me to have an accident in 7 different occasions are the Adaptive Cruise Control system, this system is supposed to keep a distance between your vehicle and the vehicle in-front of you and its supposed to adapt and match the speed, the system is failing to recognize vehicles in-front of me and keeps accelerating at a constant speed without slowing down to the point of almost getting into a collision, I had to take aggressive preventive action, this happened 4 times in the last 2 days. The second big safety issue is that when im cruising in the highway with the cruise control engaged and another car merges into my lane in-front of me the Ridgeline will aggressively brake (not a normal slow down), it brakes so hard that everything inside the truck went flying and the car behind me almost crashed into me. This happens a lot, but 3 of those times in the last 2 days the cars behind me had to drive into the shoulder of the road to prevent colliding with me. Its not only with cars merging into my lane but also when I have cars in the same lane that slow down (for example from 70mph to 65mph, my truck wont recognize it until the very last second and it will aggressively brake with a lot of distance between us. I want to point out that im very familiar with how the system works, we also have a 2020 Toyota Sienna that has the same system and it does not behave like this. There is something seriously wrong with the truck and this problem can and will likely end up in an accident that can result in serious injury or death. I need Honda to make this right.

I have owned many Honda vehicles and have never had problems with them, this includes 3 CRX's (88 and 91), 1993 Honda Civic Hatchback, 2008 Honda Ridgeline, 2010 Honda Fit, 2012 Honda Civic Ex, 2012 Honda Civic Si, 2014 Honda Odyssey and now the 2023 Honda Ridgeline.

Yesterday before taking off on the long trip, the front parking sensors went off and would not stop making sound, it was constant, I took a video of it. I got off the truck thinking there was something in-front but there was nothing. I had to turn the truck OFF and then ON again and it went away but they never worked again.

I was very happy with my new Ridgeline until today, this thing turned out to be a lemon.

I hate to say it, but I think most of those things are just how the truck operates. Yes it’s not right, but this has been many users including myself since 2017 model. My sensors do that often where they’ll just consistently go off until I hit them off. Usually the rain does it for me. The collision detection is awful. If I’m on a bend and there’s cars in the other lane oncoming, it goes off yelling at me to brake. The adaptive cruise does the same thing to me as you’re experiencing. I keep lane keep assist turned off because it shakes the wheel at me when I’m in the center of my line. Very frustrating.

 

[OSDPR18]

I hate to say it, but I think most of those things are just how the truck operates. Yes it’s not right, but this has been many users including myself since 2017 model. My sensors do that often where they’ll just consistently go off until I hit them off. Usually the rain does it for me. The collision detection is awful. If I’m on a bend and there’s cars in the other lane oncoming, it goes off yelling at me to brake. The adaptive cruise does the same thing to me as you’re experiencing. I keep lane keep assist turned off because it shakes the wheel at me when I’m in the center of my line. Very frustrating.

My father in law has a 2017 Honda Ridgeline Black Edition as well, I have driven his truck many times and does not behave like this. I know it might seem “normal” but its not, There is something wrong with how the truck is sensing vehicles in-front. Sometimes it works well and sometimes it wants to crash with the car in-front of me. My front parking sensors are not working at all, the parking assistant button is ON but the sensor will not detect anything at any time.

 

[Steve Jordan]

Read the owners manual and look at some U Tube tutorials and many questions will be answered without a dealer. Many systems that are not well discussed in the manual are well explained online (although there are a lot of U tube 'stars' that are just idiots with a camera and a desire to be 'liked'). Good luck. OBTW like many on this forum I don't use ACC preferring regular cruise control.

 

[Will48121]

My father in law has a 2017 Honda Ridgeline Black Edition as well, I have driven his truck many times and does not behave like this. I know it might seem “normal” but its not, There is something wrong with how the truck is sensing vehicles in-front. Sometimes it works well and sometimes it wants to crash with the car in-front of me. My front parking sensors are not working at all, the parking assistant button is ON but the sensor will not detect anything at any time.

Gotcha, sounds like yours is even worse than it already is to begin with. Can’t hurt a trip to the dealership.

 

[kozao50625]

My new RTL-E (mostly a BE) works fine according to the manual. Your BE seems broken to me. Any damage or coverage of the sensor in the grille or the camera by the rear view mirror?

It took a few hundred miles for my transmission to "learn" and now shift better. It was hunting/jerky when I first picked it up.

 

[22RTLE]

Sorry to hear you're experiencing so many issues with your brand-spanking new truck. My 2022 RTL-E doesn't sound as bad as yours, but I definitely have a love-hate relationship with it. If you read through the forums you'll see these have some "quirks".

I've disabled the radar cruise on mine because it's a pretty useless system in the G2 Ridge. Even when it's functioning, it's unpredictable and jerky. I just use the regular cruise now.

From my experience, the transmissions take a while to smooth out or break in. I hated the ZF9 in my Ridge with a passion when I first got it. I just crossed 5,600 miles this week and it's finally smooth most of the time and I generally like it now.

Wireless charging in these is known to not work most of the time, unfortunately. Just one of those quirks...

I hope the dealer can solve the rest of your complaints, keep us posted.

 

[JuanTrippe]

Monday build?

 

[IMRIDGELINE]

I have a 2023 BE that does not act like you describe- bring to the dealer.

 

[fdeno]

My 2022 ACC operates somewhere between the original poster's system (abnormal IMO) and the way I THINK it should operate - not quite as manic as described above but definitely not optimal. The comm.ai add on is supposedly a huge improvement but I'm not shelling out $2,200 for something that should work from the factory and not convinced Honda couldn't offer a "smart camera" upgrrade factory kit to do the same thing.

 

[Otis]

I agree with most of the prior posts. Most of the systems you are worried about don't work well in the Ridgeline. But you could have a bad sensor making it worse. If I felt like you I would have it checked. Unfortunately I think my systems are not broken, they just stink.

 

[wjfyfe]

If I may wade in here, all of the issues stated here have been very well documented and would have been discovered by doing some minimal prepurchase research. if these issues were as important to me as they appear to be to some of you, I simply would have saved myself the aggravation by bypassing the Ridgeline and purchasing a different vehicle?
Just saying!
Bill

 

[Happy Tom]

Sounds like you may have some sensors that need to be looked at as what you described is worse than the usual sub-par performance of the RL advanced safety systems. After that is done, you may want to recalibrate your expectations. The voice recognition for the Honda nav system and phone charger do not work. Holding the talk button while using Android Auto works fine. The 9 speed tranny has a few bumps during its normal operation. Much has been written about the ZF9, its use of Dog Clutches and how it affects driving. So far it has been proven to be more durable than the Honda 6 speed it replaced.

Once I made peace with the limits of these items I have come to like the truck overall. The lights in the cupholder are great.

 

[trainman605]

My personal feeling on your list of dislikes, or things you think are not working correctly is pretty much the way many of those things work in many new vehicles, including my wife's new Lexus RX350. I think you will find the more sensors you have to control driving the more you will find that the system does not always read the same in every salutation. I know on my wife's Lexus she just turned some systems off because she didn't like how the vehicle was driving, or should I say driving her. I feel your Ridgeline being the top model with all the options could be doing the same, it's driving you and for some its not a comfortable feeling. If you feel all systems are going to work well together especially driving systems, then I feel you are going to be unhappy with many of todays vehicles, as all is not totally perfected as of yet. I think your dealer service department is going to tell you your vehicle is operating normal for those systems if you want to leave them turned on, it's your choice, NO, or OFF.
trainman

 

[zroger73]

Hello all,

I wanted to report some problems that im having in hopes someone here can provide some guidance. I just bought a 2023 Honda Ridgeline Black Edition about a week and a half ago. Yesterday was the first day that I drove the truck for a prolonged period of time (500 mile trip). There are 6 issues right now with the truck, 2 of them being serious hazardous safety issues. I will start with the less dangerous ones: The front parking sensors stopped working, the wireless charger is not charging the phones, the talk button on the steering wheel wont recognize commands (called Honda support tech and we tried everything) and the transmission is having shift delays and shakiness. The 2 big safety issues that almost caused me to have an accident in 7 different occasions are the Adaptive Cruise Control system, this system is supposed to keep a distance between your vehicle and the vehicle in-front of you and its supposed to adapt and match the speed, the system is failing to recognize vehicles in-front of me and keeps accelerating at a constant speed without slowing down to the point of almost getting into a collision, I had to take aggressive preventive action, this happened 4 times in the last 2 days. The second big safety issue is that when im cruising in the highway with the cruise control engaged and another car merges into my lane in-front of me the Ridgeline will aggressively brake (not a normal slow down), it brakes so hard that everything inside the truck went flying and the car behind me almost crashed into me. This happens a lot, but 3 of those times in the last 2 days the cars behind me had to drive into the shoulder of the road to prevent colliding with me. Its not only with cars merging into my lane but also when I have cars in the same lane that slow down (for example from 70mph to 65mph, my truck wont recognize it until the very last second and it will aggressively brake with a lot of distance between us. I want to point out that im very familiar with how the system works, we also have a 2020 Toyota Sienna that has the same system and it does not behave like this. There is something seriously wrong with the truck and this problem can and will likely end up in an accident that can result in serious injury or death. I need Honda to make this right.

I have owned many Honda vehicles and have never had problems with them, this includes 3 CRX's (88 and 91), 1993 Honda Civic Hatchback, 2008 Honda Ridgeline, 2010 Honda Fit, 2012 Honda Civic Ex, 2012 Honda Civic Si, 2014 Honda Odyssey and now the 2023 Honda Ridgeline.

Yesterday before taking off on the long trip, the front parking sensors went off and would not stop making sound, it was constant, I took a video of it. I got off the truck thinking there was something in-front but there was nothing. I had to turn the truck OFF and then ON again and it went away but they never worked again.

I was very happy with my new Ridgeline until today, this thing turned out to be a lemon.

Problems with both the front parking sensors (ultrasonic) and radar (which is used by the adaptive cruise control and automatic emergency braking systems) make me suspect the vehicle had some type of front end damage/repair before you took delivery and these separate and unrelated sensors were not calibrated/aimed correctly after the repair. Sometimes, vehicles get damaged in transit between the factory and the dealer and sometimes the dealer won't even know about it. Because the damage is repaired before the vehicle is sold, it won't appear on any vehicle history reports like CARFAX or AutoCheck and dealers often aren't obligated to disclose this information by law depending on state and the cost of repairs.

The wireless charger rarely works for anyone in 2021-2023 Ridgelines and Honda has no fix and probably never will.

Regarding the voice commands, try deleting your phone from vehicle and your vehicle from the phone then re-pairing the two. If that doesn't work, try a Factory Data Reset. If that doesn't work, there might be a problem with the microphone or audio-navigation system. Can the other party hear you during a call when you're using Bluetooth?

The ZF 9-speed transmission used in the Ridgeline has a charactistic delay of a second or two to shift into or between reverse or drive - particularly when cold. Uniquely, it also uses dog clutches between gears 4-5 and 7-8 (traditional friction clutches are used between all other gears). This can result in slower downshifts and a different feel when downshifting from 8th or 5th compared to most other automatic transmissions. You'll even experience some brief acceleration when manually downshifting from 8th or 5th using the paddle shifters for engine braking, for example - this can feel very unsettling if you're not expecting it.

 

[robertyb]

This is why I bought a Sport model. I do not want my vehicle trying to tell me how to drive or actually drive for me.

 

[OSDPR18]

Before purchasing the Ridgeline I read about it, really thought these problems were addressed on the 2023 model since I didn’t find any recalls on it. The truck had 2 miles on the odometer so I doubt it was involved in a collision before. It seems people are “ok” with these problems and just accept them as is, im not. I understand how these systems work and I know they have their flaws but what I experienced was not normal and was not safe, it almost caused an accident on several occasions. The truck is going back to Honda dealership today to get those issues fixed, they have 4 attempts to correct them, if they fail to fix it im going to claim the Lemon Law on them and they will have to purchase back the vehicle. At that point I’ll wait foe the 2024 to come out or go with a Tacoma.

 

[wjfyfe]

This is why I bought a Sport model. I do not want my vehicle trying to tell me how to drive or actually drive for me.

Thus a reason that we also purchased our 2019 RTL, but starting in 2020, if you desire a Ridgeline, you have no choice but to accept, and deal with, the nannies!
Bill