Civic Hybrid 2006 - complete loss of power sometimes

Maintenance/Repairs
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1

Hello, looking for some info to get educated before I take it to the dealer to look at.

This first occurred about 2 weeks ago, I had a complete loss of power when stepping on the gas pedal. The engine did not rev or anything, completely unresponsive and the car was just gliding. I’ve had loss of battery power in the past where the engine was still going, just straining hard, but this was not like it as now the engine was completely not responding either.

I can’t recall if it was going up or downhill – it was around time the incline changed in a freeway ramp that began up and then moves down. At first I thought it was me accidentally putting it on neutral as I have a habit of resting my hand on the shift knob, but putting it in/out of drive did not help initially but after the 2nd try everything was back to normal so I thought nothing of it afterwards.

But if happened again this morning, again on a hill transition, either right before the top of a hill or right as I was coming down it. This time I know I did not have my hand on the shift knob. It resolved itself about the same, I had to shift in/out of drive a few times and it worked fine again a few seconds later. I’ve made an appt to goto the dealer to have it looked at tomorrow but wanted to get ideas first on what it might be.

I’ve been good with maintenance and changing out everything that they recommended, and also did the IMA battery recall upgrade.

thanks!

2

Been looking through other posts and noticed I could give more info to help: car is approx 120k miles, no warning or other indicator lights.

3

Sudden and intermittent loss of power is often a failing crankshaft position sensor or camshaft sensor.

4

The problem might be caused by a defective accelerator pedal position sensor. Here’s the one for your vehicle.

https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=2415732&cc=1432624&jsn=332

Instead of having a throttle cable between the accelerator pedal and the throttle body, your vehicle has this accelerator pedal position sensor which sends a signal to the computer. The computer then operates the electronic throttle body from that signal.

If the computer doesn’t see a signal from the accelerator pedal position sensor, the computer see’s no reason to operate the electronic throttle body. And the vehicle doesn’t accelerate.

Tester

5

Just curious, does the Honda Civic accelerator pedal work the same way with their hybrid version as with their conventional gasoline vehicle, assuming both use drive by wire?

6

Yes.

Tester