My Love/Hate Civic Hybrid Thanksgiving
 

The Love Part
My wife and I picked up my parents last Thursday morning and headed up to my aunt's house for Turkey Day. After about 15 miles on the interstate, I spotted a semi heading up a long hill. I caught up to him at the top of the hill and drafted off him for the next 60 miles. When we got to my aunt's house, Trip B read 61.4mpg over 83 miles--Woohooo!

The Hate Part
After gorging on turkey and all of the fixings, my cousin's girlfriend wanted me to take her for a drive. After about a mile, the check engine light went on, the "D" transmission indicator started flashing and the car had almost zero power.

We had it towed to the dealership (total PITA on Thanksgiving) and they looked at it the next morning. The dealership found a code P0722 on the output shaft speed sensor. They reset it and drove it for 20 miles (killing my fabulous milage from the trip up) and didn't have the problem again. We've driven it all weekend now without any other problems.

Has anyone else experienced this? The car is brand new--when the tow truck picked the car up, it had 611 total miles on it. Hopefully this was just a computer brain fart and this won't happen again!

Re: My Love/Hate Civic Hybrid Thanksgiving
 

Sorry for the bad taste after a great meal.

Mind if I ask what the average temperature and weather conditions were at the time the fault appeared?

Cheers;

MSantos

Re: My Love/Hate Civic Hybrid Thanksgiving
 

*Mmr cringes as a playful glint appears in Santos' eye :)

Re: My Love/Hate Civic Hybrid Thanksgiving
 

It was nice on Thanksgiving Day--sunny with a high temp in the low 60s. Since this was in the late afternoon, I'm guessing the temperature was around 50 degrees when the fault appeared.

Why, does this problem sound familiar?

Re: My Love/Hate Civic Hybrid Thanksgiving
 

The Civic has a built in 'drafting' sensor - the car knew you were doing something dangerous and punished you accordingly!

I once had my every warning light in the entire dash go on while I was driving. I shut the car off at a traffic signal, restarted the car, and most of them shut off. Restarted again and it was fine...

Good luck!

(Perhaps your car got indigestion from the turkey!!!)

Re: My Love/Hate Civic Hybrid Thanksgiving
 

LOL! My wife and parents were both in the car so when I use the term "drafting" I was doing it far enough back not to scare them--probably about three car lengths back. Still, I was surprised at the MPG benefit even though I wasn't right on the semi's bumper.

Maybe the car was upset about the extra "post-dinner" weight it had to carry around...

Re: My Love/Hate Civic Hybrid Thanksgiving
 

Yes, I know of one case in particular where a CVT sensor ended up being replaced because it was mis-reporting excessive "slippage". If I recall correctly, that reported discrepancy was identical to the description you provided.

Fact is that it was not slippage at all, even though it appeared to coincide with the arrival of colder temperatures.

Cheers;

MSantos

Re: My Love/Hate Civic Hybrid Thanksgiving
 

I keep tellin' folks they don't need to ride the bumper while drafting. Good to see someone who agrees :)

Re: My Love/Hate Civic Hybrid Thanksgiving
 

This was my first ever drafting experience, but I knew that if I followed too closely, my wife would make sure that it was also my last drafting experience! If I can get milage in the 60 mpg range, I don't see any need to follow closer...

Re: My Love/Hate Civic Hybrid Thanksgiving
 

As far as drafting techniques -- if you open both front windows about 2" and start either from right under the bumper of a large vehicle or half a mile behind the same vehicle then you can find the end of the drafting envelope. When you are IN the draft you can hear/feel a wind buffeting occur as the wind is no longer a constant direction. If you are half a mile back the sound/feel of the wind will be the same up until you get just inside the envelope of the draft. Then just pull forward another 10 feet (where you are still 3+ car lengths back at 60 mph) and you are now in the draft. When the wind is correct (i.e. not hitting the side of the car) I have been able to stay in the draft as far back as about 250 ft (or 3 seconds at 60 mph which is 88 ft/sec or 264 ft or a VERY safe distance).

Be careful noting the "added weight" after the dinner because you noted taking out your cousin's girlfriend and she could read something into that. <smirk>