Same problem here with our '98 CR-V. Drives perfectly, cruise light comes on and the car seems to think the cruise is set, but it doesn’t accelerate. Once it slows down enough, it downshifts and revs up trying to accelerate but never manages to do so.
We’ve had it about 6 months, has worked perfectly fine up until now – just started doing this out of the blue.
I think my problem is the transmission. The gear before overdrive it absolutely gutless. In fact, overdrive has more oomph than the gear before it. I’ve also got slippage between 2nd and 3rd sometimes. I’m just babying it until I really have to go have the tranny rebuilt.
I/ve got a 1000 Honda CR-V that does the same thing hills or straightaways. I tried adjusting the cable to the actuator and got some advice that it could be a bad actuator which would explain the intermitteness of the problem. I would have dhanged the actuator except unfortunately no one carries the cruise control for Gen 1 Cr-Vs. So used (junk yard or ebay) was the only option which I decided against. So I just pretend I’m now driving my 1967 2-door Ford Galaxie 500 and enjoy the feel of my foot on the pedal. If anyone finds a parts house that sells new actuators, please post. I did find an actual video on YouTube that shows how to rebuild an actuator for CC. So, if you have a tremendous amount of patience you could try that.