I own a 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid with 48,000 miles. I’ve had two problems with it which may be related to each other. During the past couple of months when I am at a stop or moving very slowly the vehicle will not accelerate in drive. Nothing happens when I push the gas pedal. I have to change to neutral, where the engine will rev, and then switch to drive in order to move forward. This seems to happen more in higher temps but does not happen all of the time, maybe two or three times a day. I took the car to my dealership and the dealership was not able to replicate the problem. In the meantime I’m concerned about my safety. The second problem is that occasionally my brake lights come on for no apparent reason. This happened in my garage a few months ago and seemed to be attached to the emergency light system. In order to get the lights to turn off I had to drive the car around. This situation happened again at work. What do you think? I’m moving to Dallas, TX in a few month and will have a relatively long commute to work. I’m worried about my safely and Honda says that nothing can be done unless the problems are documented at a dealership. What advice do you have?
Check the adjustment of the brake light switch, which is under the dashboard.
A misadjusted, or malfunctioning, brake light switch may be causing both problems.
Thanks, I’ll give it a try.
You were so right! I brough the car back to the dealership and they didn’t think that this was the problem. They put the veh through the new battery update and diagnostics and all was fine. But when they walked away they noticed that the brake light was on. When they fixed it all was well. The brake light signalled to the accelerator not to go. I was able to fool it when I went into neutral.