Honda Shares The "Joy;" December Sales Down 34%

by Edward Niedermeyer

Published: January 5th, 2009

Have we mentioned recently that selling cars is difficult these days? Honda sales dropped 34.7 percent in December compared to the previous year. And that’s despite being one of the few automakers to run car-as-stocking-stuffer ads. Like this little beauty which reminds Americans that inside everyone one of us lurks a small, toy-crazed child who knows that he wants an MDX. But even “low finance and lease offers” couldn’t cut through deathly silence in credit-fueled consumptionland this holiday season, and holiday non-sales dragged Honda to its first annual US sales decline since 1993. A 34 percent monthly and 6.7 percent annual drop may look good in this market, but Honda is doing some serious stretching to proclaim the “joy” to be “back.”

Edward Niedermeyer

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Sajeev Mehta on Jan 06, 2009
SherbornSean : I’m not convinced Honda is limited by its small set of platforms. There is plenty of room to grow its core: the Accord, Civic and CR-V. Just think of all the competing Chrysler and Pontiac models — ripe for the picking, I would think. I think we are on the same page: they NEED to limit the number of platform derivations and focus on their core models. My other point was that Acura has gone too far up (RL: AWD from FWD, outclassed V6) and out (the CUVs) and the inherent Honda goodness of their engineering gets lost at those price points.

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Tubacity on Jan 06, 2009
So this is good for their transaxle warranty claims, right. My Honda V6 auto transmission puked in 2008. I had to pay so I might have helped Honda profits. Helped convince me not to be a Honda buyer in 2008 when I was in the market. So maybe I did not help Honda Profits but added to the sales decline. Transmission issue was not dead in 2008.

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Galaxygreymx5 on Jan 06, 2009

Tubacity, I think what psarhjinian means is that era of mass transaxle failures in the 2000-2003 Accords, CLs, TLs, and Odysseys is over. Every automaker builds some duds, and I'm sure we could round up hundreds of vehicles made by each and every automaker in 2008 that had their transmissions crap out. But the point is that a few years ago, something like 1 in 5 Honda automatic transmissions were crapping out in a spectacular and dangerous fashion, and that issue has now been rectified to the best of my knowledge. As far as I know, aside from CVT-equipped vehicles, you can now buy a Honda and be pretty confident that the transmission is at least industry average in durability.

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Psarhjinian on Jan 06, 2009
Transmission issue was not dead in 2008 Your transmission failed, which is bad for you and not unheard of among others, but indicative of epidemic transmission problems on V6+Automatic Hondas in 2008. Have a look at Consumer Reports. Pull up the reliability stats for the V6 Accord, Odyssey, Acura TL or CL. Have a look at the row of four black dots in the "Transmission" category at the early part of this decade. Note that, on either side of those four years, it's otherwise a sea of red. I'd say that's indicative of a serious problem in V6/Automatic for those years. It's also indicative of the problem's being fixed.

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