Grinding his own business

Finding that the steering of my Honda CR-V felt rough on full lock I went to my local Honda dealer and asked if it could be inspected. The young lady receptionist knew immediately what the problem was and when questioned if they had dealt with many times answered yes. I took the car to the service department and the matter was dealt with while I waited. On reflection, as I pay a monthly sum to cover servicing I wondered why this matter was not part of the normal service schedule so wrote to Honda UK, but so far I have not received a reply. Is this a problem with CRVs and should it be part of the normal service work? Other than this I enjoy driving my CRV as it has only one problem in that you have to steer it, otherwise it listens to what you tell it to do.

Asked on 28 November 2011 by RJ, Solihull

Answered by Honest John

The CRV has always had a problem of water getting into the rear diff via the breather. I thought this had been rectified for the current model, but it obviously hasn't been. As with the two previous models of CRV, the oil in the 4WD rear differential dual pump clutch is known to degrade prematurely, well before the recommended replacement interval. Symptoms are a moaning/groaning noise when manoeuvring on full lock. This is easily misdiagnosed as a steering rack problem, which may lead to unnecessary repairs. The solution is to simply replace the dual pump fluid with the latest spec Honda fluid, which is called Dual Pump 2 fluid.

Tags: water ingress

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