OREANDA-NEWS. American Honda will voluntarily recall approximately 634,000 Odyssey minivans from the 2011-2016 model years to install additional springs and brackets onto the slide mechanism for the outboard second row seats, free of charge. No crashes or injuries have been reported related to this issue, which was discovered through warranty claims.

Under certain circumstances, the mechanism that allows the outboard second row seats to tilt and slide forward for access to the third row seating area may not properly lock the seat into place when the seat is returned to its normal position, increasing the risk of injury to passengers seated in the second row. Until the required repair has been performed on each vehicle, Honda recommends that, after using the walk-in feature, vehicle owners should slide the seat into the desired position and manually lock the seat into a fixed position by pushing down on the horizontal position adjustment bar.

Additional springs and brackets will be installed in affected vehicles, free of charge, which will provide additional return torque to the mechanisms, ensuring that the seats lock into place. However, due to the large volume of new parts needed to repair affected units, the necessary parts will not be available until spring 2017. As a result, owners of affected vehicles will be informed of the recall in an initial mailed notification letter in mid-February 2017. A second notification letter will be sent to inform owners when parts become available.

Honda is announcing this recall to encourage all owners of affected vehicles to take them to an authorized dealer as soon as they receive notification from Honda that replacement parts are available for their vehicles.