Surprised by the Millennium Worm? Honda Motors returned to 2002 in the New Year

Owners of some Honda cars have recently found themselves stuck in some sort of time loop. Since the beginning of the year, the automaker's forums have been filled with reports of people complaining that the clocks and calendars in their vehicles were stuck in 2002.

This problem seems to be widespread. It affected Honda and Acura models produced between 2004 and 2012 with GPS navigation systems, and there have been reports of problems in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. More importantly, there does not seem to be a solution at this time. Every time someone starts their car, the clock is reset — even if they've set it manually beforehand.

"Honda is aware of potential problems related to the clock display of certain Acuras equipped with navigation systems and honda's older models," a spokesperson for the automaker told Jalopnik. "We are currently investigating this issue to identify possible countermeasures and there are no other details to share at this time."

The problem seems to stem from a coding oversight. When GPS satellite broadcasts a date, it uses a binary 10-digit number that includes a reference to the week of the week. A GPS epoch consists of 1023 weeks, and the system rolls in the 1024th week. The first GPS systems began counting time in 1980, flipped in 1999, and then flipped again in 2019. If a system doesn't have the proper codes to account for these rolls, what could happen is exactly what we saw on Honda's vehicles: they're back to where the calendar started.

Humorously, this isn't the first time Honda owners have encountered this problem. Back in 2017, the clocks of honda and Acura models with navigation systems were reset to 1998 from 1999 to 2004. The same problem recently arose in 2021. In both cases, the clock goes back exactly to 1024 weeks. Time knows how to mock everyone, but it seems to have a special place for Honda's software developers.

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