2008 Honda Element
This year drew an ordinary 111 complaints for a Honda Element — the model's median is 112. What they were about is the unusual part: 27% of them mention brake, against 5.1% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 111 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 112 |
| Involving a crash | 5 |
| Recalls | 13 |
| EPA combined | 20.5 mpg |
What the complaints were about
- brake — 27% of this year's complaints, against 5.1% across the model's other years (5.3×).
- pedal — 20.7% of this year's complaints, against 2.5% across the model's other years (8.4×).
- brakes — 19.8% of this year's complaints, against 3.2% across the model's other years (6.3×).
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
WHILE HAVING THE OIL CHANGED BY THE AUTHORIZED DEALER, THE CONTACT WAS INFORMED THAT THE REAR BRAKES HAD BECOME WORN. THE CONTACT NOTICED WHILE DRIVING THAT THE BRAKE PEDAL WOULD EXTEND TO THE FLOORBOARD WHEN DEPRESSED. THE VEHICLE HAD NOT BEEN REPAIRED. THE C…
HONDA ELEMENT 2008 BEGAN EXPERIENCING SOFT PEDAL WHEN APPLYING BRAKES, 2 LIGHTS CAME ON VSA AND ABS! . I CONTINUED TO DRIVE THAT PARTICULAR DAY AND WHEN I TUNED OFF ENGINE AND TURNED IT BACK ON LIGHTS DISAPPEARED FOR A SMAL AMOUNT OF TIME. BRAKES FELT AS THOUG…
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
Recalls for this year
- 19V182000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 19E068000 VEHICLE SPEED CONTROL Fixed free of charge.
- 19V501000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 19V499000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 18V268000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 17V029000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 16V344000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
- 15V320000 AIR BAGS Fixed free of charge.
Showing 8 of 13. The rest are on NHTSA's site.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Honda Element was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2008 Honda Element? What happened to yours?
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