Rear Doors Of U.S. Honda Odyssey Might Slide Open While Driving

Minivans are for families. And those families depend on their minivans to keep them safe. But one popular minivan apparently has an issue that needs to be resolved.

This one comes from Honda, which is known for making some of the safest vehicles on the market, but is now recalling over 100,000 of its Odyssey minivans in the US because its power-sliding rear doors could open while the vehicle’s in motion.

The problem, according to the recall notice from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, is with the door latches, which “may stick and not properly latch the door strikers.” That could leave the doors free to slide open and (suffice it to say) increase “the risk of injury” by, say, rear-seat occupants falling out the vehicle on the highway. Of course, that could only happen if those occupants aren’t belted in, but it’s still an issue that needs to be addressed.

The recall is estimated to affect 107,774 examples of the Odyssey in all trims (save for the base LX version) manufactured at Honda’s plant in Alabama between January 19, 2017 and April 16, 2018. The bulk of those (107,744) are from the 2018 model year, with another 30 of the 2019 model that were assembled on April 12 of this year.

That works out to about how many Odysseys that Honda sold last year, and looks on track to sell again this year – down from the high of nearly 178,000 it sold back in 2006.

Fixing them will necessitate replacing both the left- and right-side rear door latch assemblies – a process which is slated to start on December 20. Honda Odyssey owners in Canada might also expect to get a recall notice in the mail, but those in other markets overseas probably needn’t be concerned as the “international” version of the Odyssey is an entirely different vehicle.