- Honda recalled 2016–2021 Civics over a wheel manufacturing defect.
- The 18-inch alloys lack lug sleeves and may detach while driving.
- Around 406,290 Civics with official accessory wheels are affected.
If there’s one downside to splashing out on a smart set of alloy wheels for your car it’s that you never get to see them when you’re driving. Well, not normally, but Honda is recalling over 400,000 cars because their wheels could detach at speed giving owners a rare chance to admire them in motion.
The US recall affects 2016-21 Civics that were equipped with a particular type of 18-inch alloy wheel made by a supplier in Italy. The wheels are pretty distinctive, each featuring a red stripe around the outer edge and 15 slim spokes in a mix of dark and silver finishes.
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What many of them might not feature but should have is five steel inserts in the lug holes. On the wheels missing this simple bush the lug nuts could potentially work loose, and in a worse case scenario, allow the wheel – or wheels – to make a break for it, causing the stricken car to crash.
Honda’s investigation traced the fault to a gaffe at the wheel manufacturer’s plant where a fence separating finished from unfinished wheels was removed during the installation of some new equipment.
Because of this a bunch of wheels were mistakenly shipped out before workers had gotten around to pressing in the bushes and giving them a final inspection. The supplier closed its doors in 2023, which is probably for the best.
Although the recall covers 10th-generation Civics from 2016-21, the wheels themselves were only manufactured in a 12-month period between December 2018 and 2019.
Honda will mail owners who it knows bought a set of these wheels and ask them to come in and have their car checked.
Dealer techs will pull all four wheels off to see if the sleeves are present and replace both the rims and the suspension hubs if necessary. They’ve also been instructed to drill two holes in any faulty wheels to ensure they’re taken out of commission.
The trouble is, people buy and sell wheels all the time, and its particularly common on cars that are a few years old, meaning it might be hard for Honda to reach every 2016-21 Civic owner currently rolling on these rims.
And many of these cars won’t be getting serviced at a franchised dealer, meaning opportunities to check them out further down the line are slim.
