Not sure what that has to do with Brian making fun of you. I can't speak to others however.

 

Its common on any car for the clockspring AKA steering wheel angle sensor to go bad, not just honda. by saying "common" means if you get a code for the angle sensor, its most likely going to be the sensor itself, rather than VSA at the wheels or wheel speed sensor. And yes, if the problem is intermittent, by law, you cannot tell the customer that he/she needs to replace the part. though most shops and dealer would say that they "recomend" replace the part.

 

Let's go back to a possible root cause. Did you by happen to remove your steering wheel, replace it or unplug any yellow harness plugs? If you're looking for help, we'd need more information to help you.

 

I wouldn't know in all honesty. My parents got me the car like this and I've had the vsa light on since the day they got it for me. Everything is stock though from what I can tell

 

I've had a preliminary check at Southbay Honda but they wanted to charge me more. I have the papers stating it is a steering wheel angle sensor failure but they said they need to run more tests. The person who helped me said it seems it most likely be an alignment problem but they're not sure until they run more tests on it; of which, requires a substantial fee...

 

Are you going to the meet tonight?

 

Sorry but I'm not in town for the next two days

 

Its common on any car for the clockspring AKA steering wheel angle sensor to go bad, not just honda. by saying "common" means if you get a code for the angle sensor, its most likely going to be the sensor itself, rather than VSA at the wheels or wheel speed sensor. And yes, if the problem is intermittent, by law, you cannot tell the customer that he/she needs to replace the part. though most shops and dealer would say that they "recomend" replace the part.
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What failure rate per 1000 units is required to be considered common?

For example, in many industries a double digit percentage failure rate is required before it's considered common. If 1 in 1000 fail this is considered to be low. EI 0.1% likely. Even 10 in 1000 or 1% failure rate my be thought to be uncommon, but move from rare/unlikely to not outside the possibility for regular failure.

A across the entire production line error of 5-6% got Honda in hot water with their Tach/Speedo's being off and over billing. However since this was an average error rate it would suggest some Tach/Speedo's were off much more than that. Generally accepted error rate for a Tach/Speedo is +/- 3%.

So I would suggest for you to consider this common, of the 70K s2000 within the USA we should see >2100 cars needing replacement of their sensor prior to it becoming common.

What is common is some soft top tears on certain years.

 

On the cars I work on the most common repair for a steering angle sensor fault is an alignment and run basic settings on the angle sensor. The second most common thing I find is some sort of fluid (armor all, coffee, soda) on the optical sensor (if the sensor on the clock spring, a lot of cars in the rack itself now). Of course if I just replaced the sensor it would "fix" the car too, the VSA, ESP or VDC light would be off.