My wife drives a 2006 Honda Civic. She just drove back from Vermont - we live near Boston - and on her way back the idle was unusually rough and twice she said it felt as if she was driving over rumble strips, even though she was on smooth pavement. The first time she was going 40 and the second time she was barely moving. She also noted that once, at a stop sign, the car wouldn’t slowly move forward when she took her foot off the brake, as it usually does. She had to give it gas. The thing is, the problem is very intermittent.
She says the only thing that is constant is the rough idle, but the engine check light is NOT on.
The last work that was done on the car, about a month ago, was the replacement of the calipers and shoes on one of the brakes. My wife had driven for some time with the squealing noise that indicates you need to change your brake shoes without telling anyone about it. She used the radio fix.
We’ve taken it to the dealer, where it is right now, but they’ve already said they are not confident they can find the problem. I would appreciate any suggestions as to what they should look for.
Very often when someone reports a rumble strip sound around 40 or 45 MPH in a Honda or Acura, the torque converter is failing. They’ve had issues in that area. Your situation seems to have some additional symptoms, though, so I’m not sure what to make of those.
Failing torque converters in Honda’s do no typically trigger a check engine light until really bad. That all being said don’t walk in and say that is the issue. It is a possibility. Note V6 Honda/Acura are the vehicles known for this issue not Civic’s or 4 cylinder Honda.
The Honda dealer couldn’t find anything, though they didn’t actually hook up the computer. I went for a ride with the technician and we couldn’t reproduce the problem. He didn’t think it was the torque converter and he did check the brake work he did last time we had the car in. He seemed to think the torque converter would light up both the ABS brake light and the Check Engine light.
At the moment, I guess we keep driving it and hope we can reproduce the problem and it doesn’t do something horrible.
Any suggestions as to what we might be able to do to reproduce it or rule things out?
“He seemed to think the torque converter would light up both the ABS brake light and the Check Engine light.”
It would light up the ABS light?
Are you sure that this was a real technician/mechanic, or was it a Service Writer?
Truthfully, that type of incorrect information sounds to me like it came from a Service Writer, most of whom know very little about cars.