I bought my '06 Civic Hybrid in December with the Navi and with barely 800 miles on it so far, it seemed perfect....... until last week. In the middle of driving, my speedometer switched into metric mode and the lights on the dashboard and navigation dimmed out. (I wasn't touching any of the settings, both of my hands were on the wheel when it flipped on me.) It turns out when my headlights are turned off now, the dashboard returns to it's normal self but once the headlights are on, my dashboard and navigation both are impossible to see. It used to be the other way around. The speedometer returned to normal after a couple of days, but now I have to avoid driving after the sun sets until the sun comes up. Technically I can drive but I won't see how fast or where I'm going. It seems like a computer chip problem so I'm taking it into Honda but was wondering if anybody else on the forum experienced the same thing. It could be just me...but it seems that my fuel is disappearing much faster than it did when I first got the civic. Driving a distance of about 40 miles seems to have taken 4-5 bars off my fuel meter. Could it be that the electric system in my car is starting to fail?

 

I will guess that you've got a short somewhere. Have the service dept look at it as soon as possible, and explain to the advisor who writes up your repair order about the problem occuring when you switch on your headlamps, as you describe here.

W/ regard to your fuel meter - the gauge has sections where it will 'lose' a bar or two quicker than in other sections. Two of those occur at about the 2/3 full mark, and just before the 1/3 full mark - just as they do in Hondas with mechanical (needle) gauges (another is at the 1/5 mark, from what I see). You generally should get about 25mi or so to each 'bar' section, from my experience, depending on how you drive the car, but this is not hard / fast, especially given the non-linear travel of the gauge, as I mention above.

Put a few more miles on, and see if the gauge situation alleviates. If not, mention this to the dealer as well. I don't think it's related to your short, because that would probably affect the visibility of the gauge, not the accuracy of it.

If you've had the car for 2 mo. and only now have crossed 800mi, you're probably not driving the car too much per day, or your trips are short. Shorter trips will put a hurt on your mileage, and you'll notice it more if you tend to make only the occasional short trip, compared to your (usual) longer trip. That may be a cause of your fuel gauge issue as well.

From what I've seen, you're the first person that's posted this problem (I visit both at this and other Honda & Civic forums).

Again, take it in as soon as you can - lack of instrument visibility at night is a definite safety issue.

 

Is it possible this problem caused the dashboard lights to reset to the very dimest setting? The dashboard has a light night and day and has settings for both. Try turning them up all the way (both with the head lights off and then with them on) and see if that helps. That doesn't explain why it happened but it might help solve one problem so the mechanics can focus on the real problem.

 

Thank you for both of your advices. I did double check and the problem did indeed reset the dashboard lights for the "night" to a dimmer (the middle) setting. Even when i put it back to the brightest setting it was on before however, it is still faint at best compared to what it was before and much darker than the normal "day" setting. At least I can make out pretty much what speed I'm travelling at now, the navigation is still hard to see though. As for the fuel GreenAndBlue, it is about the 2/3 fuel mark that the bars drop more than anywhere else but I'm definitely not getting about 25 miles to each bar. I usually drive a 15 mile distance usually going about 60mph and i'll measure it next time but I think a round trip about 30 miles drops close to 4 bars or more. By the way, are there other owners of the civic Hybrid who have installed remote starters along with aftermarket alarms for their cars? I've had a honda dealer in NY tell me that remote starters don't work for the 06 Civic Hybrid because when they tried installing it, something about the batteries being drained as a result. But I was able to find an installer that another honda dealer and other car dealers nearby use, who have been able to get the remote starter to work....even if it took several installations and test trials over several days to get it figured out. since it was a certified installer, and a very reputable alarm system (python) I'm hoping the honda dealership doesn't try to blame that installation for the problems. I have an appt to bring in the car into the dealership tomorrow so I'll update on what happens.

 

Well.. the Honda Service appt was absolutely useless. On the way to the appt, my navigation went all exorcist on me. The dealership is only a mile way, and by the time I reached there, the navigation had turned from visible to black screen, a total of about 4 times. I showed the service advisor how the navigation turns completely black when any setting is changed, whether I edit an address or the brightness setting is turned down one notch (it's at the maximum brightness setting of course) and they said they weren't able to do anything because they couldn't replicate the problem while out on the road. The navi is still screwed no matter how i see it because if it blacks out when I choose a song or change anything, it shouldn't matter if they can replicate it while driving or not. Even while stationary, that kind of blacking out shouldn't be happening at all. With so little miles on the car, they are insisting that i drop it off next week overnight so they can try to diagnose the problem. Before which, the assistant manager there tried to blame everything on my alarm installation. Where did you get it in installed? It's most likely the installation, etc, etc. When I told him it was installed by a certified dealer that honda as well as other car dealerships use in NY, he chilled a little bit but was kind of an a**hole about it. I'm debating whether to take it to another Honda dealership and see if they are effective in fixing this at all. Can anyone recommend a honda dealership in NJ or NY that they've had a good experience with. I could learn to live with the blacking out but I shouldn't really have to for a car that's barely 3 months old .....

 

It is possible that the alarm install did cause the problem. But the burden of proof is the dealerships. If you don't get answers here about what dealership to go to then you should just shop it around.

 

Wow....this is definitely unacceptable. You shouldn't have to learn to live with something that is brand new.

I'm in NY also, but to be honest I'm not sure how experienced my dealership is with troubleshooting Hybrids....pretty scary now that I think about it. If you want, shoot me a pm and I'll give you their number....

 

Hello NY NY;

Your not going to want to here this, but here is the truth. Think about this for a moment? Did you Honestly have this problem before the {AFTER MARKET REMOTE STARTER/ALARM} was installed?

I work for a dealership and I can tell you that from 1st hand experience. The dealership has Removed more Alarms and Remote Starter Systems than you can imagine. All kinds of weird things electronically going on. Very weird things and No-One could figure out why? After a few times of going through that, they simply give the Customer the Opportunity to take their vehicle back to the place that installed the After market equipment to remove it. Or the dealership removes all the After Market Equipment and {Charges-Per-Labor-Hour} for getting the vehicle back to Factory Specs.

This is very sad I know and Realize but I am telling you this to help you. I hope you understand that it is really hard for a tech to find out what is causing the problems when someone has added other Electronic Equipment to their vehicle.

My, advise would be to Have removed this After market Equipment and Pray that it has not Messed up the cars {On-Board-Computers} that control all functions on the HCH II.

I wish you the Best of Luck on this and Hope you can get things worked out.

HTH;

Terry

 

If I were the Honda dealer, the first thing I would do is have you remove all the aftermarket stuff and see if that cures the problem. If you dont want to do this, then drive it like it is. Aftermarket crap is cheap at best and probably was installed by a bunch on high school kids working for these places. And since there are few 06 hybrids out there they probably for sure on this one did not know what they were doing. It should not be the Honda dealers responsibility to fix the car after you let other people jump in and put the aftermarket stuff on there. Tough words, bite the bullet and take the aftermarket stuff off and see if car works right then, if not, then hope that Honda will warranty the thing. I'll bet the stuff you added was NOT for a HYBRID model, rather a plain old CIVIC....two different cars. Good luck!

 

Fully Agree with Tigerhoneker (Terry), that you need to confirm the problem is not related to the Alarm Install. However... since the alarm was installed by a Honda dealer, you should be covered. My suggestion is take it back to the dealer, as they have requested, let them run the diagnostics and figure out where the problem is. If the dealer still is less then helpful in resolving the problem and keeps pointing to a faulty alarm install, they should still work to get it resolved. If they do not, then you need to make sure Honda is made aware of this dealers reluctance to help. Here is some contact info for Honda Customer Releations, in case you don't have it handy:


By Phone
(800) 999-1009

By Fax
(310) 783-3023 (24 Hours)

By Mail
American Honda Motor Co., Inc.
Honda Automobile Customer Service
1919 Torrance Boulevard
Mail Stop: 500 - 2N - 7D
Torrance, CA 90501-2746

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