car stops shifting and can't go over 45mph on freeway

Hi,

I just bought an accord plugin this weekend. Driving to work yesterday the engine suddenly started revving at a high rate and lost power. I needed to pullover and restart the car to make it stop. No warning lights came on, but there was a faint burning smell in the cabin the first time it happened.

This happened on three separate occassions since then and is now being serviced at the dealer. Each time I had to pullover and restart the car. Has anybody experienced something similar?

Thanks,

Wow..that never happened to me...

How many miles you got on yours....just recently crossed the 2k mark here.
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I have 200 miles on the car, basically new.

Got it back from the dealer after they couldn't find anything wrong with it.

After driving it home noticed a different issue. The car now won't enter HV mode
manually. I'm wondering if there is a software issue with the car.

Anyone else experience similar problems?

What do you consider a high rate of revving? What's it like?

The car will run the gas engine at highway speeds. How much depends on the state of charge of your battery.

Did the dealer service department try a road test? You can even ask them to road test it with you. If it's really not running right, I wouldn't take it back from them.

gpiu":2agjnlk8 said:

I have 200 miles on the car, basically new.

Got it back from the dealer after they couldn't find anything wrong with it.

After driving it home noticed a different issue. The car now won't enter HV mode
manually. I'm wondering if there is a software issue with the car.

Anyone else experience similar problems?

Click to expand...

Nope, pressing the HV button below the shifter nob allows me to enter/exit "HV" normally...never had issues with that either...

This happened to me as well. Leaving work, I got a "ACC system not working" or some such warning. This warning stayed on while driving. Once on the freeway, after a while the engine became much louder than normal. Not the normal "gas engine just kicked on" sound. The charge level was completely gone, no bars at all. The car would no longer maintain speed. I had to get out of the carpool, exit the freeway, turn off and turn back on the car. After that, the ACC warning was gone, and the car acted normal the rest of the way home.

This has only happened once so far, so that is good, but it was really alarming.

Update... it happened to us again today. My wife was driving to work on the 210. Two warnings showed up, ignition system and engine coolant this time. The car lost power like before. She was close to Honda of Pasedena so she took it there. Of course, no dealer really knows how to work on this car... but they reset the computers I guess, and she is back on the road. They got lots of info from the car and were working with Honda on the issue. Hopefully Honda is aware of this and is working on it.

I just crossed over the 7K miles and only 1 of the service reminder light turned on at 5,500 miles for the oil change. So far so good !

Another update... same issue happened again yesterday. Warning lights (emissions, something else), car doesn't go over 35 mph with the accelerator floored. Wife just dropped it off at Freeway Honda in Santa Ana. I opened a case with Honda. We'll see what happens...

If the warnings are emission system and engine cooling system, combined with very low power, it sure sounds like the electric coolant pump that acted up twice one day on ours. But there was a specific diagnostic trouble code saying the pump was turning too slowly, and the dealership after a call to Honda agreed to change the pump without waiting for it to happen again. That was June 2013 and it's been fine since. Not sure why it's so mysterious in your case.

jpiu and imaki, I also just bought the same car 1 week ago and had the same issue happen everyday. Seems to happen while in HV mode or when the car is using both the gas engine and battery for movement. Randomly the car revs very high and loud for at least a minute. Feels like I'm losing power during that time. Except just recently, I lost all power from the gas engine while I was driving on the busy 5 fwy! I was forced to pull over to side, restarted the car twice before it started to work normally again. Took it to a local dealer, they immediately did a software upgrade. For now, will see if this upgrade fixed the problem and go from there.

BTW, I filed a compliant with the US DOT NHTSA. Please do the same. I found out the problem has existed since June 2013 if you do a public search of 2014 Honda Accord. This is a serious safety issue especially for a brand new car like this.

Date Complaint Filed: 06/17/2013
Component(s): ELECTRICAL SYSTEM , ENGINE Date of Incident: 06/16/2013
NHTSA ID Number: 10520128
All Products Associated with this Complaint
Vehicle MakeModelModel Year(s)
HONDAACCORD2014
Details
0 Associated Documents
Crash:No Fire:No Number of Injuries:0 Number of Deaths:0
Manufacturer: Honda (American Honda Motor Co.)
Vehicle Identification No. (VIN): JHMCR5F73EC...
SUMMARY:
ACCORD PLUG-IN. TWICE THE GAS ENGINE LOST ALMOST ALL POWER AT FREEWAY SPEED, UNABLE TO MAINTAIN PREVAILING SPEED. TURNING OFF & ON RESTORED POWER. DEALER REPORTS CODE P2602, ELECTRIC ENGINE COOLANT PUMP FAULT. *TR

Hey jpharm, I recognize my NHTSA complaint, and posted about the coolant pump on this forum about the same time.

It would be interesting to know the trouble code associated with engine power loss. The dealer should be able to tell you, to print it on the service order. If it's the same code, it's likely the same problem. At least the fix is straightforward.

The non-plugin 2014 Accord hybrid likely uses the same pump. If it still has issues, there will be more cars with the problem. Once they figure out how to make the pump properly -- if there is a problem with it -- a recall is in order. But until we compare trouble codes, we don't even know if we're talking about the same problem. It could also be an engine control software issue misreading the pump's speed, but I haven't seen such mentioned in service campaign bulletins on the occasions that I subscribe for a day to techinfo.honda.com.

Hi Javel, thanks for reporting the compliant. Because of that, now I have a pretty good idea what the fix might be if my car continues to have problems on the freeway. Your experience with your car, symptomatically, seems exactly similar to mine. Except, I did not have any service codes or warning lights displayed when my event happened. I wish I had asked if there were any service codes (they didn't document any), but I had already got my car back over the weekend. So on the repair order, they documented a hard reset of car, courtesy multi-point inspection including the battery, internal/exterior lighting, and tires, and a software update that states: "Safety recall: 13-102 E-VTC motor software update. Cause: To prevent damage to E-VTC actuator updated PGM-FI and confirmed no DTCS"

I hope whatever the problem was, the software update took care of it. An easy fix. But it seems like after reading other ppl's experience from this forum, after they did the hard reset (maybe did a software update?), it did not fix the problem. I will continue to monitor and do my own testing with my plug in accord over the week. Next time, for sure I will ask for any service codes and ask to replace the coolant pump.

I heard from the dealer where I bought the car, that the non plugin accord hybrids go on sale next year. They said its the same design with the plug-in hybrids except without the plugin option (and probably a smaller battery too). Of course they will probably use the same flawed parts and more ppl will have the same experience. What's surprising is that Honda might have known about the problem and they are still delivering and selling these cars with bad firmware and coolant pumps.

Software update seems to have fixed my car problem. The biggest notable change: my car starts using the gas engine only at around 45+mph instead of 65+mph. In theory, that means I'm using more gas and barely in hybrid mode while traveling at freeway speeds. But safety over fuel economy I guess, until Honda can fix the root problem of car running in hybrid mode between 45 and 65mph in a future update. Anybody else noticed this after the software update on your car?

First post here guys.

I had similar symptoms today. I'm about a month in to my accord plug in. Lost power on the freeway, couldnt do more than 30-40mph - looked entirely in electric mode. Gas engine wouldn't kick on even in HV mode. Ended up running out of a charge & the gas engine won't start up, shudder and stalls. Had to have it towed to a Honda dealer.

And I quote - "First time. No idea."

Brought up the service advisory for the e-vtec software & the coolant notes on this board. Here's hoping its just a software update to fix the problem(s).

Any other experiences or solutions?

This happened to me four time now over the last 15,000 miles or so. I have to pull over, let the engine cool and then the car drives fine. The check engine light stays on for a couple of days. I assumed it might be the gas, and possible the tightening of the gas cap. The engine never looks like it is over heated. I also think it could be from buy cheap poor gas. The manual says the engine need top tier gas. so I have been buy super unleaded for one fill up. This made the engine light go off completely the next time I started the car. Still wondering if it is a software problem. If the engine cuts power due to the emissions problem maybe that triggers the coolant pump problem; since it suddenly slows down or something. Hoping someone will get Honda to solve this and then post it here. I am planning a visit to the dealer in the next few days.