Consumer Complaints
| Fail date | miles | occurences | Purchase date |
|---|---|---|---|
| POWER TRAIN | |||
| 10/08/2012 | 66245 | 1 | |
| Noticed about a week ago that there was a whining noise coming from the engine while in gear. it doesn't make the noise in park or neutral or when at a stop and the engine shuts off. took it to dch honda in temecula,ca and after an hour they called me and told me my transmission is bad and it will cost me $5250 to get a new one installed. i had the ima battery replaced last year with less than 40k miles on the car. still only get 38 mpg avg. on highway. *tr | |||
| 10/08/2012 | 66245 | ||
| Noticed about a week ago that there was a whining noise coming from the engine while in gear. it doesn't make the noise in park or neutral or when at a stop and the engine shuts off. took it to dch honda in temecula,ca and after an hour they called me and told me my transmission is bad and it will cost me $5250 to get a new one installed. i had the ima battery replaced last year with less than 40k miles on the car. still only get 38 mpg avg. on highway. | |||
| 09/16/2010 | 20000 | 1 | |
| The car has a propensity to lurch forward at low speeds. when making a turn or stopping at a light the engine intermittently will rev and thrust the vehicle forward. if the driver is not knowledgeable or prepared for this tendency, the vehicle can thrust forward and strike whatever is in its path. the second problem that i have encountered is that the vehicle uses a malfunctioning integrated motor assist (ima) feature that is supposed to give the vehicle extra power to enter a highway and safely merge with oncoming traffic. unfortunately, this feature is unreliable and can leave the vehicle and driver in a position of not having enough power to safely merge with high speed traffic. this differential in speed is very unsafe. in 2011 i had the li battery for my hybrid vehicle replaced. this battery failed in less than a year. i was told by the senior mechanic at the honda dealership that honda corporation was aware of this defect. and that honda knowingly replaced the li batteries last year with known defective batteries as a quick fix to appease customers. there is something seriously wrong with this technology, and i believe that honda is intentionally not disclosing the true nature of the problem with these hybrid vehicles. i would be interested in knowing if the honda civic hybrids are experiencing a higher than normal accident rate due to engine surging at low speeds and inability to safely merge with highway traffic because of loss of power due to the ima system. *tr | |||
| 09/16/2010 | 20000 | ||
| The car has a propensity to lurch forward at low speeds. when making a turn or stopping at a light the engine intermittently will rev and thrust the vehicle forward. if the driver is not knowledgeable or prepared for this tendency, the vehicle can thrust forward and strike whatever is in its path. the second problem that i have encountered is that the vehicle uses a malfunctioning integrated motor assist (ima) feature that is supposed to give the vehicle extra power to enter a highway and safely merge with oncoming traffic. unfortunately, this feature is unreliable and can leave the vehicle and driver in a position of not having enough power to safely merge with high speed traffic. this differential in speed is very unsafe. in 2011 i had the li battery for my hybrid vehicle replaced. this battery failed in less than a year. i was told by the senior mechanic at the honda dealership that honda corporation was aware of this defect. and that honda knowingly replaced the li batteries last year with known defective batteries as a quick fix to appease customers. there is something seriously wrong with this technology, and i believe that honda is intentionally not disclosing the true nature of the problem with these hybrid vehicles. i would be interested in knowing if the honda civic hybrids are experiencing a higher than normal accident rate due to engine surging at low speeds and inability to safely merge with highway traffic because of loss of power due to the ima system. | |||
| 06/12/2009 | 12000 | ||
| Honda civic hybrid has a problem with the battery that the system uses to run the integrated motor assist between the transmission and the engine to assist the gas engine when accelerating. as the battery deteriorates, it does not charge as well, hold a charge and therefore does not assist as well to accelerate, causing a dangerous situation at times to merge with traffic or accelerate from a stand still. | |||
| 12/15/2010 | 9000 | ||
| I have a 2009 honda civic hybrid. after having the vehicle for less than 1 year i noticed that the battery began to suddenly drop it's state of charge (soc) during the first few miles of driving after the vehicle was parked for several hours. on sustained trips the vehicle will suddenly drop its charge about every 20 minutes. the safety issue is that when the vehicle suddenly loses it's state of charge (soc) there is a significant loss of acceleration. if the sudden loss of soc occurs at a time when you are pulling out into traffic, you find yourself being unable to accelerate to avoid the oncoming traffic. on several occasions i have pulled out into traffic with the soc reading 75% or higher, only to find that at that exact moment, the vehicle decided to dump its charge. on several of those occasions i was nearly run into by the oncoming traffic. honda replaced the battery in march 2010 and the problem went away, but after 6 months with the new battery, the problem returned. honda refuses to replace the second battery, insisting that the vehicle is operating normally. | |||
| 03/31/2009 | 22010 | ||
| Check engine and check ima light illuminated. ima battery dropped to lowest power level. battery level stayed low and both lights remained on 2 days. dealer performed an update to ima firmware and lights went off however battery performs recal check at least twice daily. mpg have dropped 6 mpg in the week following the check ima error. dealer now states there is no issue. i still have no assist power from battery and vehicle is in constant charge mode. | |||
| POWER TRAIN - AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION | |||
| 08/15/2009 | 3000 | 1 | |
| My 2009 honda civic hybrid on one occasion when starting out in the morning accelerated faster than i wanted to go, to about 25-30 instead of 15 mph in our condo area. it was very brief, and has never been repeated. after the toyota problems recently, i went to my honda service center, and they assured me that there are no problems with honda acceleration. thank you. *tr | |||
| 07/20/2009 | 19112 | 1 | |
| 2008 civic hybrid - 19,112 miles - when accelerating through an intersection from a stop, i experienced a temporary transmission failure causing me to lose forward momentum. moments later the transmission kicked in and i was able to pull out of the intersection. luckily, no cross-traffic was coming at the time and no accident resulted. i immediately brought the car in for servicing and first texas honda updated the cvt (transmission type) software. evidently a service bulletin (sb 08-014) was issued for this concern on march 1, 2008. the service bulletin stated that the transmission could experience problems similar to the one i had. i believe this model car should be recalled. honda's service bulletin was not effective in addressing this issue as it created a very dangerous situation. had cross traffic been present when my transmission failed a serious accident could have happened. *tr | |||