'07 Civic Hybrid transmission(?) issue

About a week ago, driving in San Francisco up a rather steep hill (you know, where the sidewalk is a staircase), the car was unable to make it. Gas pedal on the floor, tach near the redline, car not moving forward. Started to slide backwards. Had to back down the hill. For the next week, no noticeable change in performance, despite concerns about having damaged the tranny. Yesterday, after driving about 65 miles started down a slight hill when traffic slowed to about 15 mph and the car started running rough. Traffic stopped. We proceeded forward from a stop but not at a normal pace: tach stopped around 2000rpm, but acceleration was extremely sluggish. Stopped again on a slight uphill and the car would not move (engine running, tach stopped at about 2000 rpm, but no movement). Put it in park for a few seconds, came back to drive and was able to limp to the side of the road, hearing a nasty sounding (but hard to hear) clicking through the driver side window. Shut the engine off for 10 minutes, started up again and the car behaved normally. Took it to a service station where we determined that the fluid levels are fine and no symptoms are shown. Drove the car back home (~65 miles) with no symptoms.

What does this indicate?

@wrp

Important questions

Have you already serviced the automatic transmission fluid?

If so, did you use the correct Honda CVT fluid?

I believe it’s due roughly every 30K

We have not serviced the transmission yet (we’ve owned the car since about 60,000 miles, and it is now at 81,000), but are scheduled this week. Am I being overly concerned that we’ve caused serious damage?

Damage? Concerns? U cannot drive up a hill that all other cars can? I think u should have a dealer tech look at it. Not the corner garage with Gomer.

@wrp

Don’t take this the wrong way . . .

You are WAY overdue for a transmission service

Hopefully that upcoming service will do some good

Don’t be too shocked if it doesn’t help the situation

Honda transmissions are NOT known for being tolerant of lapsed maintenance