I have a 2003 Civic Hybrid I bought new with 84K miles. For the past 15,000 the battery never seems to charge much above half. This has caused the computer to constantly try to charge the battery, regardless of road conditions. Even when it does charge above half, just 1 or 2 uses of the assist causes the power level to dive.

My gas milage around the city has plunged. When the car was new, it would get in the mid 30's for city. Now, it is in the mid 20's, about the same as my wife's non hybrid Civic.

Made a half dozen trips to the dealer. They told me is is normal for its age. I responded that if my ball joints were more than half worn, and if the front wheel had a 50% chance of popping out, would you tell me that the wear was normal for its age. I have the extended warrenty that brings it to 100M miles, but what good is it when the dealers will not do anything.

It seems that unless you have a hard code of a battery failure, forget about the dealer doing anything.

This, on top of this, the transmission bucks and jitters and makes this car a disaster. Honda supposedly has a fix for this problem. I have it in the shop again today and apparently they agreed to replace the part of the automatic transmission. Between these 2 problems, the car lives in the dealer.

 

Tom, you might try changing and flushing the CVT transmission oil. That will stop the bucking. H

 

Hi Harold,

The dealer did say the transmission bucking would be fixed with a double transmission oil change. I did that, and subsequently the dealy did 2 more and their expense, one a double change again. They also replaced the transmission mounts. After the oil changes, but bucking and jitter subsided (but did not stop), for a few weeks, then back to the usual problem.

Now, with the car at the dealer again, they said we did everything Honda recommended and their service bulletin on transmission jitter calls for the replacement of the clutches. They say this will permanently fix the problem. With the car doing this bucking for the past 45M miles, including one full transmission replacement, I am hopeful but it will take a good few months of driving to convince me the problem is really gone.

Tom

 

You may want to clean the EGR valve. This can cause similar bucking problems. Do a search on this site. It is a easy fix.Good luck Tom, H