New member here as my wife and I just bought this car in February.

Saturday my wife and I were out of town in her Civic Hybrid and as we were walking back to our car a lady asked us to jumpstart her small (non-hybrid) suv. Thinking nothing of it, I grabbed the jumper cables out of the trunk and hooked them up with our Civic still running. As soon as I sat down to rev the engine a bit, the car stopped running. I turned the key over a few times and nothing but a few dash lights came on. So after having someone else jumpstart our car we went on and everything seemed fine. At first just about every maintenance minder in the book came on for a few minutes but then went back off. Made 4-5 more stops that night with no issues. Sunday, the car started fine but my wife (its her car) said it sounded louder and was idling at 1500, and she claims it normally idles at 1000. I dismissed it because everything seemed fine and I thought she was being paranoid because of the scare she had with it not starting yesterday. This morning as we're getting ready for work, she says it was doing the same thing, turned key and nothing happened, I go to start it and it fires right up.

My real question here is, what could the failed jumpstart have done to make the car not start? And, did I screw up big time? I have done most of the maintenance myself, changing spark plugs, oil, transmission fluid etc but I didn't check the manual on jump-starting. My wife drives nearly 3 hours total on her daily commute, so I feel bad putting her on the road in a car I'm not sure that I trust now (thanks to me). I plan on hooking up my OBD diagnostic tool this evening just to see what it says but won't be able to put into the dealership shop until Saturday.

Any help greatly appreciated!

TLDR; failed jump starting someone else's car now ours is screwy

 

The jumping incident was likely the trigger that cause a marginal cell to drop out. The subsequent gremlins are likely due to low voltage issues from the weak 12V.


It's probably the original 12V. check battery for date codes. If it's the original, you should probably replace it.


You can check battery yourself as follows:


Once parked for the evening, pop the hood, but leave it closed.


I don't know the 2012 systems or conventions. If it has a key fob, keep the key fob indoors away from the car.


After >10 hours of sitting, open the hood and check the 12V. It should be over 12.6V. Over 12.4V is okay, but you likely have a battery on its way out.


Check battery with the car in Accessory mode and with ignition ON. In both cases, voltage should be 11.8V or higher.


If battery voltage is lower than that, it's weak. Replace it.


Even if those check out, take it to a parts store and have it load tested. LOAD testing is the only way to guarantee that a battery is healthy.

 

That is exactly what I needed to hear to get me thinking straight again. It was the original battery and right now seems a perfectly reasonable time for it to be nearing its end of use. I replaced the battery tonight so hopefully all is well. Thank you very much sir, I truly appreciate your response.

Side note: My wife was reading her manual earlier and mentioned some sort of anti-theft mechanism that, if tripped, makes you wait 10 seconds before you can start the car. Any idea what trips it? I assume that was what happened this morning and then again at the shop this evening when the mechanic couldn't start it but I could without issue.

Once again, thank you very much.

 

I don't know the 2012 systems at all. Weak 12V can cause all sorts of problems. Fast idle was likely the car trying to charge the 12V it sensed was low voltage.

I searched the manual:

http://techinfo.honda.com/rjanisis/p...2/R21212OM.pdf

and I found nothing similar to what you said she mentioned.

 

Well, as of now it looks like the new battery cured the "gremlins". I'll update if that changes but I hope it doesn't. Thank you again kind sir, I really appreciate your responses.

 

Glad to hear it. It's amazing what havoc that little chunk of lead, acid and plastic can wreak when it's misbehaving.