Last August I purchased a 2005 Honda Civic Hybrid with 189000 on it, I knew fully well that the battery was not working but I was in a tough spot at the time and bought it anyway. Fast forward to about 2 months ago, my wife was driving it and began complaining that it felt like it was slipping and jerking every once and a while. I didn't notice anything when I drove it, but I never drove it for long periods of time like she would. I knew I had a CEL on for oil pressure and after some short research I gathered that the valve cover gasket might need replacing.

I replaced the valve cover gasket, the o rings, and the spark plugs since I didn't know when they had been replaced last. I put everything back together and I was happy to find everything working well when I test drove it. My wife took it to work the next day and she called me on her way to tell me that the jerking was back. This time it was much, much worse. I drove it around when she got home and didn't notice anything until about 40 minutes into the drive. It felt like it was about to stall out. We parked it at a friend's and I decided that I would work on it whenever I had time.

So here's where I'm at right now. At first when I'd drive it it would take a long time to display issues, roughly 30 to 40 minutes. Over time it took less and less driving for the issues to appear. When driving, it will all of the suedden surge and lose power, the RPM will hang in place then will jump way up and the engine will start to move the car again. Occasionally this will stall the car. It's especially dangerous when going up hill. I've replaced so many components I've started to lose track.

Here's what I've done.

1. Replaced the valve cover gasket and o rings.
2. Replaced spark plugs at the same time.
3. Suspected a pinched vacuum hose so I replaced the PCV lines, NOT the PCV.
4. A friend suggested throttle body issues having had similar symptoms on his Civic. Replaced throttle body assembly including IACV.
5. Went back and replaced the PCV valve.
6. Removed, inspected and cleaned EGR valve.
7. Check transmission fluid and topped it off with a small amount of genuine Honda CVT fluid.
8. I thought maybe since Honda is pretty picky with spark plugs, maybe it didn't like what I put in previously, so I replaced the Denso Iridium plugs with the same kind that I had removed, Bosch 6720 platinum. Which I did this morning.

Right now it starts and idles without fault. When I put it in reverse and back out, no issues, but when I put it in drive it immediately starts it's jerking. It seems to hit 2000 RPM and it hangs then jerks again before continuing. It's not stalling out while driving anymore but eveytime I start the car it dies 2 times before staying on. I'm running out of ideas and I'm really tempted to sell it for as much as I can get.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. My apologies for the long post.

 

Even if they gave it to you the car has negative worth, because what you purchased is a money pit. You would have been far better off buying a conventional Civic, even with that many miles on it. Which is an awful lot by the way.

The original slipping problem sounds like a bad/failing transmission to me. Presumably this is a CVT, and they suck. Horrible design. They have clutches in them, would the symptoms make sense if a clutch was being released or engaged at the wrong times or too fast or too slow?

At this point with a bad IMA and a possibly failing CVT you are looking at roughly $5-6K to "fix" those problems and return the car to a fairly reliable state of operation. Assuming there is nothing else wrong with it. That would be insane, just good money after bad.

If you insist on trying to keep this car you should change the CVT fluid. Even if in the end this turns out NOT to be a CVT issue, because the only way to keep these things at all healthy is to frequently do fluid changes, and on this car you have no idea when it was done last. Do it 3 times, driving it around a little in between. It has to be done this way because it is impossible to fully drain the transmission, all you can do is change most of it. 3 changes will replace almost all the fluid, basically diluting a little remaining used fluid into a lot of new fluid. The drain plug on the transmission has a magnet and there will be some junk on it the first time. If the changes are far enough apart there will be some time for the crap circulating in the transmission to stick to the magnet between changes. You want all the metal bits out or it can jam up the valves which control the transmission logic. The CVT fluid is expensive, and you are supposed to replace the crush washers each time, which you will only find at a dealer or on line. Assuming you have all the tools it should cost, um, $120-$150, depending mostly on how much you have to pay for the CVT fluid. Only use genuine Honda CVT fluid, and make sure it is the right type because there are several

Do you own a code reader, if so, are there any set? If it is a motor/emission control issue there should be. If it is a transmission issue there may not be.
Look up "blink codes" and how to get them on a Civic, then get them for this car. It might tell you something useful about the transmission which you couldn't read with a typical code reader. Honda's own diagnostic tools can read all this stuff directly, but a $100 OBDII from Autozone cannot.

 

This is the right advise right here, sounds like a transmission issue for sure. You mention you have topped it off with the official Honda transmission fluid, but that is probably not good enough. Each drain/refill requires 3 quarts/litres of the fluid, so three bottles of the stuff. I would recommend one drain and refill first, to see if there is any noticeable improvement, then if there is, you can consider doing the other two drain/refills. I had mine done at an independent mechanic who works/worked for Honda, and he only charged me a small fee to do a drain/refill ($20) compared to the dealer who wanted $160, but since you sound quite mechanically inclined I assume you'll be able to handle this yourself. The crush washer should be replaced, but I have heard that you can just flip them over if you're in a bind and can't get hold of one.

If there's no improvement, you can check if your area has any vehicle scrapping schemes as a way to get at least something out of the car. Where I live in British Columbia the province will give me $5000 towards an electric vehicle if I scrap this car, so that's my own "get out of jail free card" if I start to have problems.

 

I'd add "valve adjustments" to the list. I thought I had failing engine mounts, or a bad start clutch, with how aggressively shaky my engine was when accelerating from a stop. Turns out she was very overdue for a valve adjustment and that cleared a lot of my issues up. It isn't overwhelmingly difficult to do yourself (although it isn't quite as an easy as an oil change) and made my car feel brand new.
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