If you’re a major automaker who needs to introduce something new overnight, you have two options: Either throw all resources at it and throw caution to the wind, or pull a steamed hams and disguise someone else’s cooking as your own. The Honda Prologue may look like a Honda and say Honda on the back, but it’s built by General Motors from GM powertrain components in GM’s Ramos Arizpe assembly plant. This isn’t a first-generation EV — the Chevrolet Bolt was on GM’s previous dedicated EV platform — but judging by what owners are experiencing, it doesn’t seem that all the technology underneath the Honda Prologue is mature. It’s actually causing problems that are giving Prologue owners serious headaches.
First, let’s set the scene: It’s 2025 and car forums are still miraculously kicking. While broader interest forums have largely been supplanted by Facebook groups, model-specific forums are still chugging along, and the general discussion section of most new car forums is filled with a wide variety of topics. Talk about features, specs, accessories, economy, and all the facets of owning a particular vehicle. The Prologue Drivers forum is a little bit different. Click on the general discussion tab, and you’ll find that it’s heavily composed of Prologue owners complaining about their GM-built EVs.
While minor complaints from memory seat issues to wireless Apple CarPlay dropouts pepper the board, sadly, a few tech glitches are par for the course on new cars. What isn’t par for the course? Actual mechanical issues, that’s what. Unfortunately, it seems that a bunch of Prologue owners have been experiencing real problems with their vehicles, things that really shouldn’t be failing on brand-new cars.
Take this thread titled “I’ve got the axle issue,” for example. One Honda Prologue owner noticed their EV was making a clicking noise while turning with just 700 miles on the dashboard, booked their Prologue in for servicing, and asked the forums for advice, seeing as others had been there before. Naturally, it didn’t take long for more owners to chime in about experiencing this issue. Blastoid wrote “It was diagnosed on my car as axles. I think the one or two that had the CV joints replaced, had the sound come back,” while other owners went into further detail. In the words of Fastermac:
I have the bad axles as well. 3150 miles. First heard the clunks after 1500 miles. It has gotten more frequent. Noise occurs at both left and right turns but not every time. Dealer is in the process of getting replacement approval. I’ll keep driving the car since this will probably take at least a month. Hopefully Honda/GM can figure out why this is happening. I see no point in replacing them with parts that are still defective.
It’s not great to see multiple reports of CV axle issue on low-mileage cars, but it also makes me feel like I’m not crazy and imagining the clicking sound I heard in the last Prologue I drove, notably while turning and accelerating from slow speeds. However, it’s not the most serious mechanical issue that lots of Prologue owners are talking about.
Another thing you’ll see on the board is wide reporting of high voltage system error messages. One thread, titled ““Service High Voltage System” and “Reduced Acceleration Drive with Care” errors on dashboard,” details one Prologue owner’s encounter with dashboard lights and subsequent replacement of air conditioning system valves, with other owners chiming in reporting similar issues. As aslam wrote:
I have Honda Prologue Touring 2024 for about 2 weeks now. I was quite happy with the vehicle but all of sudden these 2 warning messages started popping on my dashboard screen, “Service High Voltage System” and “Reduced Acceleration Drive with Care” errors on dashboard. Vehicle is not getting charged after that and throwing this error “Unable to Charge, Service charging station”. Only thing that I remember did extra on that particular day that I turned on the heater on “Hi”.
However, air conditioning valves is one of the better outcomes of high voltage system errors. Prologue owners have also reported battery pack failure at low mileage, with a thread titled “Battery replacement already!” started by Jesse1320 striking a chord with the community. Here’s what the initial post said:
So I purchased a Prologue Elite and within my first week of ownership SO many issues were found with the vehicle. The main one being 500 miles into the car the high voltage battery needing replacement!! The battery is on back order and now I am out of my brand new car for no one knows how many months. Anyone else have had similar issues?? Should I wait for the battery replacement?? Or should I try to switch to a new Prologue if allowed through the dealership and hope for no problems??
Help!!
Jesse1320 definitely isn’t the only Prologue owner to require battery pack replacement at low mileage. Forum user ST0818 chimed in on the thread with their own experience, writing:
I’m having the same issue except at 994 miles. My car has been in the shop for the past 7+ weeks. They have no timeline on how long the battery will take and I have no patience left. I filed a case with American Honda but it’s been pointless.
In addition, forum member james reported experiencing similar issues with their Prologue, adding to the thread:
As an FYI on this thread – I had to take my car in for this error on 8/23. They tested and informed me they would have to order a new battery as something had shorted, that the batteries were backordered, and it would likely take a month or so to fix. I just got the call today that the battery came earlier this week and its installed and ready for pickup tomorrow. Hopefully others w/ this issue have been able to get this cleared up quickly as well.
Oh, and the list goes on. Forum user Heidifleck kept things short, writing “I am in the exact same boat. 2024 Elite, 510 miles needs new battery. Any update on your car?” Joeyfadem added “Now my car needs a new battery as well.”, while DarthRater went into more detail:
Hey lucky me, I got to join this club today! 500 miles in, the app starts harassing me about “charge aborted” and by morning stops reporting data completely, and the red car was on. Take it to dealer, the warning had gone off but the app still unresponsive. And the damned battery is on backorder.
In another thread titled “High Voltage Battery failure and service engine soon,” forum member A’Mazin detailed their own experience with high voltage system failure, eventually diagnosed as bad modules in the high-voltage battery pack. As the forum member wrote:
Literally took posseion of my new 2024 Honda Prologue a week ago today. 5 days in and I went to charge at a public charging station (waiting on Honda to send me our home charger) and all was going well. At 72% it stopped charging with an error message stating that it cannot find a charger and the connection cannot be detected. I unplugged and then tried to plug back in, however the charging station could not establish a connection. I figured 72% was good enough and cut my loss. When I stared the car immediately error messages appeared . High voltage battery failure and service engine soon. Of course I freaked out thinking I did something wrong ( new to EV and first time charging myself). Of course read the owners manual and then did my own research and found this forum and YouTube channels. Looks like I am falling in the same boat as many of you. Car is at the dealership and they tried to charge it and it will not charge. Needless to say, I’m on a loaner and my dealership is lost. We have been a Honda family for ever. We currently own two CR-V’s, one civic, and now a prologue. I just traded my odyssey for the prologue and I’m really questioning my decision. I know that the prologue is made with a collaboration with GM but I’m not loving the EV life so far. My question is after you have experienced this situation has the car been working fine afterwards? I don’t want to give up on it but I don’t need to be stuck on the side of the road with my kids. I buy Honda because of the reliability
If that sounds like a lot of frustration, then boy, do I have a forum thread for you. It’s titled “For everyone who is frustrated with the car and wish they never bought it,” and it seems to be one of the more popular threads this week on the Prologue Drivers forum. It starts off with forum member “Blastoid” recommending selling troublesome cars for peace of mind, and while a few owners have chimed in reporting trouble-free experiences, others have reported glitches and hardware issues that prevent them from really loving their EVs.
At the same time, threads like this won’t help people who are underwater on their cars and can’t afford to take a bath, or who are locked into a lease term and can’t justify the termination fee. While these problems certainly don’t apply to all GM products, they do seem to apply to the Ultium EVs, and GM has a history of a fix-it-in-post mentality. Some of these problems owners report like drivetrain clicking and Apple CarPlay dropping out were issues I experienced in a press car, and I also experienced the tire pressure monitoring system dropping out. Meanwhile, I experienced no software or mechanical issues in a Honda HR-V press car I drove the prior week in similar conditions.
We asked Honda about these reported powertrain issues, and the firm responded by stating “Owners with concerns should contact their local Honda dealer for assistance. The Prologue is covered by a robust warranty.”
The bottom line? Owners are frustrated and disappointed, and if you’re looking at a Honda Prologue, don’t go into it expecting Honda reliability. Perhaps this pattern of problems will be fixed as time goes on, but for now, more reasons why Honda’s launching its own EVs soon are coming into focus.
(Photo credits: Honda, Prologue Drivers forum)
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If I were not a car enthusiast, my personal experiences with GM and Honda products would flip flop the normal stories of build quality. I had an Oldsmobile Eighty Eight for many years, it was exceptionally reliable and built pretty well, some poor interior panel fitment would be the only complaint. I replaced the Oldsmobile with an 09 Civic Si, and it is wrought with electrical issues, the interior is very poorly put together and just generally feels cheap. Admittedly, from a mechanical standpoint the Honda has been excellent but build quality, seals, plastics, and electronics are all junk in it.
That said I am talking about old cars, this article is talking about newer vehicles and I’m not surprised by the happenings of the GM platform, it’s in its infancy, and GM is not an agile enough company to really put out a fully baked product in the first try.
Is this not the case on every model-specific forum and sub-Reddit out there?
Early adopter here, got a Prologue Elite back in August. The car arrived with a giant tear in the back seat, that took 3 months for a replacement. Then at 4000 miles the axles began clicking, confirmed both front axles failed. Got a loaner, and the loaner had the same issue LOL. Of course parts are backordered indefinitely because everyone else is having the same problem. When everything works I enjoy driving this thing, but it is indeed a GM product. Sad state of affairs when GM can’t even engineer a half shaft anymore.
I remember reading some the first Prologue reviews here and the talk was how they changed a bunch from what GM provided, blah blah. Back of my mind I was waiting for these issues to manifest. And here they are. What do you expect when you basically put a new body on a whole platform from another company?