The owners of Honda cars in several different countries have been hit by a technical glitch causing their clocks to show the year 2002.
Honda cars made between 2004 and 2012 have been affected by the glitch, with many car owners in the US, UK, and Canada reporting the issue.
Honda car glitch resets clocks to 20 years ago.
On January 1, instead of changing to show the year 2022, the clocks in many Honda cars went back 20 years and showed January 1, 2002. The issue only seems to be affecting models, which include in-built navigation systems.
Hundreds of Honda drivers have taken to social media and online help forums to complain about the annoying issue affecting their vehicles.
Honda US reported that they took the problem to their Engineering Team after receiving a number of complaints about the issue.
However, they said the glitch is unlikely to be fixed before August 2022, although they are investigating and searching for a fix before then.
Honda eyeing a fix to car glitch for August.
A spokesperson shared: “We have escalated the NAVI Clock Issue to our Engineering Team, and they have informed us that you will experience issue from Jan 2022 thru August 2022, and then it will auto-correct. Please be assured that we will continue to monitor this and will advise you if a fix is available before that time.”
In the UK, Honda said they are investigating the issue and advised customers experiencing the timing problem to contact their local dealer.
Honda UK told MailOnline: “We are aware of an issue which affects the clock function on certain older Honda vehicles. We are currently investigating the issue to decide the appropriate countermeasure, and in the meantime, we would encourage affected customers to get in touch with their local Honda dealer.”
Their statement continued: “Currently investigating this issue to decide possible countermeasures and have no additional details to share at this time. Please be assured that we will continue to monitor this and will advise you if a fix is available before that time.”
No additional details could be shared at this time, a spokesperson said, and they are only aware that the issue is affecting older vehicles.
One social media user, who contacted a nearby Honda dealer, said he had been the third person that day to report the same issue.
Dealers have not been able to suggest a solution so far.
My @Honda 2007 CR-V clock now useless in 2022; resets to 2:00 MST on 1/1/2002 after every startup. 32-bit signed integer overflow of yymmddHHMM? Would unsigned int fix it? This is time-critical. 😉 Thousands of us need a software update! pic.twitter.com/BSGCaxnMmx
— Sumner Hushing (@_______shushing) January 4, 2022
Honda has faced the same issue before.
This widespread problem with Honda cars has attracted speculation that it could be the same Y2K22 bug that affected Microsoft Exchange in the early days of 2022 due to the coding of the new year’s dates.
However, a temporary fix was quickly found to unfreeze Microsoft emails, while the suggestion that Honda will not find a solution before August 2022 implies this is a different problem.
This is not the first time that Honda has faced a situation like this. In 2017, Honda and Acura models from 1999 to 2004 saw their clocks reset to 1998.
Some commenters have turned the Honda software bug into a conversation about the good old days when things were simpler, and there was less social upheaval.
Others have argued that in January 2002, the world was facing uncertain times after the September 11 terrorist attacks in America.