Hello My wife and I have a 2003 Civic Hybrid, bought new, now has 117k miles on it. Within the past 2 months, we've noticed that the car tends to "skip" when accelerating from a stop. This only happens when it's raining, but doesn't happen every time it's raining. The tires aren't exactly slipping, but they seem to slip-catch-slip-catch...almost like they're stuttering. The problem (when it happens) last for a few seconds, and once the car gets to a few miles/hour, the problem stops. I can't pin down any kind of pattern - it's happened in light/heavy rain, shallow/deeper puddles, accelerating straight or into a turn, gentle/hard acceleration. The one thing we have noticed is the problem only happens when accelerating from a complete stop; never when just slowing down and then accelerating again. The car has Dunlop SP20FE tires. We've brought it into a tire shop, who could replicate the problem but couldn't diagnosis the cause. We've brought it into a Honda dealer, where we couldn't replicate the problem on a test drive with the tech, although it happened as we pulled out of the dealer on our way home (!). Any thoughts on this? We're getting wary of driving in the rain at all, since the 'skipping' and hesitation could cause an accident turning onto main roads. Thanks for any input or advice.

I assume that you have a CVT, not a manual transmission.

I wonder if this problem may be related to the clutch which controls the start-up, slipping from time to time. The rain reduces your traction so this is when you notice it.

I've read several reports of CVTs acting up when in need of a fluid change. Apparently Honda has recently reformulated their CVT fluid and owners are reporting smoother performance.

Good luck!

My car (2003 CVT) has a minor problem with the transmission slipping...fortunately it's not as bad as I've read with other people so I ignore it. And--it does go away or get better if you change the transmission fluid, which I do regularly.

It doesn't feel anything like the tires slipping, it feels almost like a small lurch (in my case barely perceptible)...so I would suspect that you may be actually dealing with a tire problem and not the transmission.

In terms of the tires, there is often a tradeoff between low-rolling resistance in tires (which leads to better mileage) and ones that have better traction. But the Dunlop SP20FE, from what I found online, is a run-of-the-mill tire, not specially made for low rolling resistance. On the other hand, a survey I found on a website (sample size of 60) shows only okay (not great) performance under wet and winter conditions. Also reading the comments there, one of the posters said they had problems with these tires slipping when they were new-ish, after putting them on a 2005 HCH. So...it could be that this just isn't the best tire for traction in wet conditions.

Also...how inflated are your tires? I've read about a lot of people on this board hyperinflating the tires, which I think is a bad idea because it greatly reduces traction. Hyperinflating tires reduces the contact between road and tire, which reduces both traction and friction--the two go together in a sense. If your tires are too inflated I'd let some air out.

Alex Zorach
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