2018 Honda Civic NEED ADVICE

Maintenance/Repairs
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21

I would suggest that cell phone or accessory equipment draw all look to be as possible as meeting a dinosaur on the street: yes, the chance is not zero, but it is not very likely.

I might suggest to actually MEASURE the draw when in ACC position, and my bet would be the draw will be under 5 amps, so it will not explain the fast discharge OP described.

What I see much more likely:

#1 battery might be substantially undercharged to start with, then the next set of questions to ask will be “what is your commute distance?” / “is battery getting enough charge via a routine driving?”

#2 somewhere in its life, battery might have been drained to zero, then recharged, in this case the capacity would be greatly impacted and even a shallow discharge might take it to the point of no-start

#3 it may be a combination of #1 and #2

22

Their service department might or might not want to earn your repeat business by helping you with this problem, but you won’t know until you ask.

23

Well, it might be normal if the Civic has the Collision Mitigation Braking System. Follow too close to the car in front, and the Civic will put on the brakes all by it’s lonesome. I’ve heard that Honda’s implementation needs a lot of work, unlike the reasonably successful EyeSight system from Subaru.

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I’ll rephrase: If that is normal for that car, it is abnormal for cars in general, unsafe, and should not be used.

I’d be kind of surprised if it was normal - Honda’s done CMBS before without screwing the pooch that bad.

25

I noticed the first oil change a month before the dead battery, they tested the battery and it shows “battery good” with voltage 12.54, measured 612 CCA, rated 410 CCA, temp 111°F. Does that mean anything, and if those results are expected from a brand new battery, how likely can a battery just go bad?

BillRussell - the charger is 2 (might be rounded) amps. There’s a port for 5 amps, but nothing is plugged into that one - that’s for ‘fast charging’ whatever, not the iPhone though.

shadowfax - I meant that nothing was manually turned on, and if it could be manually turned off, then it was. I realize a car is not a battery pack; the manual does state a couple times about the ports and accessory power socket being used to charge devices, so this car (as I’m sure with others) was designed with this in mind. I’ll have to check that radar emitter thing, good idea! As to a slow head unit, if I click the Audio button to display the currently playing station, it’ll take several seconds. If I click the settings button, it’ll take a few more seconds. Sometimes it’ll take maybe up to 15 seconds for a screen to come up, but usually it’s a few seconds - to me that feels sluggish, even slow compared to trying a Samsung Galaxy 6 on it (3 or 4 year old phone). Ha, sorry about that natural sounds thing - you know when you turn on a TV, you’ll hear a little pop or electrical crackle? Or when you flip some light switches, usually older ones, you’ll hear a little pop of electricity starting to flow? That’s what I’m referring to, those seemingly normal electrical sounds when something turns on or off, I hear that often with ACC and maybe it’s just be now noticing it, but it seems louder than it should, chalk on a chalkboard after a while.

jtsanders - I’ve heard the same about the Honda and the car putting on the brakes, but with no human explanation a couple times now, and the harsh deceleration it did, yeah i think it needs a lot of work.

thegreendrag0n - thanks for the test idea. Maybe i can do that at Auto Zone this weekend since they have the equipment and it’s free. Any other test ideas? as for questions: #1 it’s about 20 miles and about 1 hour, car sat in the parking lot for about 7 hours afterwards when it was then used to charge the phone. #2 the car was purchased with minimal miles about March of this year. The dealer kept it for several days afterwards to do the interior lighting. Do you think this is still possible, even a few months after they did that install and a month before the incident, their battery test shows “battery good”.

whitey- good point. i thought about calling places, honda or dealerships, and ask point blank some of these questions, but i’m not sure i’d fully trust whatever answers i get, they have their business interests in mind.

26

Go back to the dealership and do a comparison between your car and another 2018 similarly configured. If they act the same way, probably nothing you can do about any of this, other than turning off the automated features you don’t like. I expect the ‘struggling’ sound is just the way your CV Transmission works. I have a friend who bought a 2018 Corolla, and it has that sound when accelerating. If you have a turbo engine, that could contribute to that sort of sound also. The only thing you’ve mentioned that’s sort of surprising to me is that the battery discharged to the point the engine wouldn’t crank after 45 minutes charging your cell phone with the engine off. I can’t see how that could be explained away as “being normal”. Suggest to show the dealership exactly what you did that made that happen. They may be able to see what’s going wrong just by you showing them. Also you could ask that you try recharging your cell phone in one of their lot cars, see if that causes the battery to go dead.

BTW, suggest to avoid getting your car jump started if at all possible. It can confuse and even damage the computers.

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George_San_Jose1:
i did test drive a similar model, but i can only borrow their car for so long, and not enough time to see if some random oddities still take place. During the test drive, i did notice some similarities, like the engine noise or ACC clicks, they were still there although quieter. So things like that, bummer it sucks and i don’t like it, but at least i know it’s not just my car. Not all auto features can be turned off, either, that was my first reaction as well. As for showing the dealership, I intend to the best I can, but keeping them focused on my car alone and for however long to monitor things or drive on the roads with me until some things happen, well that i’m not so sure they’d be willing to do for long periods of time. Yes to showing them, and some of these trivial things that may not be important by itself but might clue them in where the fault may lie. Good idea about charging my phone on their car. Ha, i’ll have a picnic at the dealership on labor day!

if you suggest not getting a car jump started, how do you get a dead battery working?

28

You are lucky that someone did not smash your window to steal the phone . Why can’t you charge the phone at night at home ?

29

My knowledge of the electronics involved is pretty limited, but I can say that you need to have a diary of every interaction with the dealer, with your notes about what was said, and you need to keep every receipt from the dealer for everything that has been done. If they tell you, “Nothing can be done …” the answer is “Fine, put it in writing.” And also make notes of every time something you feel is weird happens. If you are technologically sophisticated, record your conversations and scan your receipts, and record your reports as they happen, but be sure that you make a solid record. Honda will respond if they have to, and with your notes that will be the situation.

30

If my battery goes dead to the point it won’t crank the engine I disconnect or remove the battery entirely and charge it using a battery charger. My car has a manual transmission, so I can usually push start it if absolutely necessary. I had my alternator damaged one time when giving a jump start to another car, so I don’t do provide jump starts either, unless there’s some sort of hazardous situation involved.

I presume ACC means automatic cruise control, which involves the car’s radar collusion avoidance system. My friend with the 2018 Corolla has that function, and said it sometimes makes a buzzing alarm sound for no apparent reason. I think that’s just something you have to accept if you decide to leave it turned on.

31

You call a road side service with a battery pack but you should have roadside service with your new car.

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volvo_v70 - the background story is: my daughter came into work with me and after all her youtube’ing and snapchat’ing, her phone died. so that’s when we went out there, got her plugged in and charging, i went back to work for half hour or so, and when i returned, viola! car won’t start. so the phone wasn’t left in the car that whole time either. i didn’t call roadside cuz the taboo that they’ll take an hour or three to arrive, versus a coworker that happens to be walking out at that moment. but now that i know jumping a car can do harm, i’ll have to rethink that! good to know!

wentwest - i’ve started keeping notes, after this started of course, but also noting the problems and the weather and temperature and traffic to appease the service dept. i do want to ask them to document everything on my receipts, too, for reasons you mentioned as well. good thinkin!

George_San_Jose1 - sounds like a lot of work, but could be worth it, that and/or waiting out roadside to do that instead of jumping. i think i can turn off collision avoidance, i’ll have to try that and see if the beeping stops. (honda calls it Collision Mitigation Braking System or CMBS. The dealer wouldn’t let me test out that feature on the first test drive :slight_smile:

33

Ask the dealership if it violates your new-car warranty if you get your car jump started. If they say “no problem, have your car jump started anytime you like”, then if it damages something, they’ll be responsible to take care of it. So that won’t be an issue while the warranty remains in effect.

34

I leave my phone in the truck on the charger all night and it doesn’t even phase the battery a bit.

I’m still of the gut feeling that these problems are all related to whatever electrical widgets were connected at the dealer. I have no idea what they did or how they did it so…
Maybe these accessories can be disconnected as a test procedure to see what happens?

You might not consider finding another dealer to be a good option. Since this was dealer installed accessories this means that…

  1. Honda Motor Company will not warranty any problems related to this. The dealer might, or should.
  2. This means another dealer will charge you quite likely a 100 bucks an hour to sort out whatever has been done involving those accessories. Five hours X 100 bucks adds up quick, etc and you have to remember that they may be going in blind.
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Also, with that CMBS and random beeping with no visual message, that only started recently. Previously I’d get a visual “BRAKE” oftentimes with no audio. According the the manual, it’s always supposed to have audio. But it happens often enough and without any reason i can tell that i’ve kinda started unintentionally ignoring it. and it bears repeating, i don’t tailgate and it happens usually without any reason i can tell.

Anyone know how much i can insist or push a dealer to look and hopefully find the serious issues i’ve mentioned without them coming back and saying they have to charge me? Or is that something i need to research in the honda warranty?

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ok4450 - hmm, more to test out. i might have to have roadside assistance on speed dial on labor day!

37

Honda and Toyota are both pretty good at resolving these kinds of problems for their customers, so you got that going for you. Remain on good terms with the dealership. But if they simply offer no hope, in the back of your owner’s manual you should find the contact info for Honda Corporation. When you contact them, they’ll tell you how to proceed to get the issues resolved.

38

George, that’s reassuring, thanks. I think I’m in defensive mode cuz of that “don’t use accessory mode” reply from them, plus spending tens of thousands and finding these glitches or malfunctions or whatever. Again I’m fine if problems are consistent and safe, I’m not fine if they’re dangerous or only happening to me.

39

Well, with new car complexities, maybe the best we can do is re-read that book from 1970 by Alvin Toffler, titled Future Shock :wink:

Def’n of Future Shock: the effects of too much change in too short a period of time

Which is part of the reason both my vehicles are over 25 years old … lol …

40

Sounds like an interesting read! I’d like to give back technology oftentimes lately, i spend too much money to be spending so much time with tech support or service dept when my car has issues, or when my phone is glitching, or my thermostat suddenly can’t connect to WiFi, or my cable box goes down, or my daughter is having a temper tantrum. I just wish things worked as promised, expected, or more reliably overall.