[phineas]

I don't know, that hole looks pretty big. I'm going to go check mine, they're probably all the way down too.

Hey that kind of stinks. Sorry.

 

[phineas]

I checked my Ridgeline Thoroughly after I Read DSERVIT's post. Mine doesn't have this problem, so I don't think it's an across-the-board thing. But people should check it before buying.

 

[phineas]

How many 2017 RL owners are on this forum currently ... 10 ... maybe 15 ...

I'm guessing that it's more like 30 as people come in and announce and then leave. And then there's the people who never post. Is there an easier way to count it than the obvious? Should we open a poll or something?

Add: sorry, JBGreen. Just saw you counted 30 yesterday morning. In that case were probably up to 35. I think as a community, we should be very interested in this number.

 

[phineas]

To all the 2017 RL buyers, look at the black rocker moldings on the truck especially on the forward part of the bed, As I dropped mine off at the dealer yesterday my wife and I were looking at the new models, she pointed out that the molding on the front of the bed seemed bent, I bent down to look at it and when I touched it, it fell off, I checked the one other that they had and the rocker molding was barely attached. 3 clips were broken.

I just checked my rocker panels from front to back on both sides and they are fine. But it's the second time I've checked because someone else posted a while back that they had an issue as well. Clearly there were problems with this operation.

REAR DOOR CLOSING ISSUE

An issue I have been wrestling with is door closing. When three doors are closed and you go to close the fourth the air pressure inside the vehicle makes it slightly more difficult to close that last door. But I have a problem with the right rear door that it just all too frequently stands ajar after being "closed." If you slam it, it always closes but if you send it in motion with just the right amount of force, not only does it not close, it's not latched in the least. If I were to drive around a curve to the left, it would fly open.

By comparison, the left rear door (and in fact all three other doors) always closes. It's the sort of problem that drives dealers and owners nuts because people do these things in different ways. I've always been a minimum force kind of guy. (Thank God my 11-year-old is the exact opposite.) Is the service manager or mechanic the type of person who always slams the door? Well then you're likely to get "we couldn't find anything wrong." It's my 14-year-old daughter who usually sits in his right rear seat, though. She is not the type to slam the door. There is a safety issue is as well as a danger for another car or pedestrian if the door were to swing out.

My plan is to live with this for another couple of days and keep testing it myself I want to see that it consistently has this issue. But then I have to pursue this if I believe that there is something wrong with the door.

 

[phineas]

That is usually an easy adjustment to the latching mechanism. We had an '03 Avalanche with a similar issue and it took the mechanic just a few minutes to make the adjustment once we pointed it out to the dealer when we noticed it on delivery inspection.

Yup. I hear you. The repair part of this is minor. It's the diagnosis part that I have some experience in the past with being blown off even though I proved to be right later on.

 

[phineas]

Let me put a cap on this right-rear door thing. I spent some time this evening trying all four doors and I got into a rhythm of being able to throw the door at nearly the same rate every time. My conclusion: there's nothing wrong with my right rear door that isn't wrong with all four doors. And it only happens when the three other doors are closed, so the air pressure is a factor. But bottom line: user error. The doors don't close the way I'm used to. Toyota doors close a bit more positively. Throw the Honda door just right and it literally bounces off the latch with the aid of a little air pressure. I just need to close the Ridgeline's doors a bit more firmly. I have to teach my kids too. All they've ever known is Toyotas. Sorry for the false alarm.

 

[phineas]

That's going to be the child safety switch. It's a little black switch below the strike plate on the door itself. Just move it to the other position and you'll be set.

 

[phineas]

All vehicles have vents which allows the pressure to "escape" when closing the doors. In the Taco its behind the rear seats, also where most of the road noise comes in. I wonder where the RL hides these vents? Unlikely that it's behind the rear seats as there is no gap between the bed and the cab. I wonder if the flaps in your vents, where ever they are, are perhaps stuck.

I don't think the vent is completely blocked, but it may let a smaller amount of air out than I'm used to. Most cars have an inlet vent with a HEPA filter (or at least some sort of filter), usually located somewhere below the dash. Could the Ridgeline be relying on that?