17 Civic Adaptive Cruise Control won't start / gas pedal suddenly has dead zone

[barkode15]

I've got a 17 Civic Touring that's had the Adaptive Cruise Control get into a state where I can't turn it on 4 different times over the last year or so. When the ACC refuses to turn on, the gas pedal seems to change behavior also. What's normally enough pedal pressure to pull away from a stop sign and get up to 10-20mph does absolutely nothing for .5-1.5 seconds, then the car suddenly surges forward and jumps up to speed.

Both symptoms seem to come at the same time. The ACC failure comes when I try to turn on the ACC on the freeway or surface streets but instead of the current speed being set, I get 3 beeps and an "ACC Off" message on the instrument panel. Once it gets into this state, the ACC refuses to work across multiple engine starts or days/weeks of driving. I don't get any other warnings for any of the Honda Sense systems, including the ACC, during this time, just "ACC Off".

The mushy acceleration seems to appear at the same time. There's suddenly a dead zone or hesitation in the first 1/8 or so of pushing on the gas pedal where nothing happens. This happens with and without Eco mode turned on. After about a second on the gas from a stop, the car realizes I'm pushing the gas and surges up to speed, but there's a good amount of time where I'm pushing the pedal and absolutely nothing is happening.

3 of the times that it's gotten into this state, I've taken it to the dealer. They've pulled the battery to fix the ACC and then claimed the hesitation is just normal turbo rev up behavior. It happened again 5 days ago. I drove the car for 5 days with ACC refusing to work and the acceleration problems. Today I pulled the battery myself and afterwards the ACC worked fine and acceleration was back to normal.

Has anyone else had anything similar happen to them? I don't know what else to say at the dealership to get them to look into the pedal issue more. I'm more concerned about the gas pedal than the ACC, since the car doesn't respond like it normally does when it gets in this funk. Pulling out from a stop sign with normal acceleration vs with a 1-1.5 second lag has gotten me closer than I'd like to oncoming traffic at least once.

Thanks if anyone has any thoughts on what this could be or what I should be asking about at the dealership

Sponsored

 

[civicdabest-foo]

Sorry I don't have much to offer other than your go to dealer probably doesn't have the capacity to figure out what's wrong or they just don't care to look deep enough into the problem.

May I suggest taking it to a different dealership? If they can't fix it the 3rd time around chances are they probably can't figure out what's wrong because whoever is looking into your car doesn't know what to look for or they just downright don't care.

Perhaps someone at another dealership has the ability to diagnose the probelm.

 

[RevHappy]

Hi barkode15, did you get a fix for this issue with your car?

Since last week I've been experiencing the exact same issue. At first I thought the accelerator was behaving funny or just my snow shoes were causing the delay, but it has happened far too many times to be a coincidence. All this time the ACC has refused to work. Pressing the 'Set' button simply shows the 'ACC Off' between 'ACC & LKAS' on the screen. Even if I switch to the normal 'Cruise' mode, that doesn't work too.

Could this be related to the battery going out? My car will complete 3 years in a couple of months with the original battery still in it.

If you could confirm a resolution was found, that'd be great. Thanks.

 

[barkode15]

Hey Rev,
Still no fix. Pulling the battery for a minute or 2 fixed it for me a month or so ago. 3 weeks ago it stopped working again. I haven't had time to take it to another dealer yet to see if they can figure anything out.

For a quick fix, I'd say try disconnecting and reconnecting the battery and then give the car a few minutes to "boot". That worked for me and is apparently all the first dealership has done to fix it in the past.

If I have time to take it in and they find anything else, I'll be sure to update this thread.

 

[RevHappy]

Thanks for updating.

I have booked an appointment with my dealer for next Saturday, they mentioned running diagnostics first to identify what's going on. This is the first time I've had any kind of issue with the car, so don't know if the techs at the dealership will be able to catch it the first time and not end up just resetting the battery as your dealer did.

One thing I can think is that I got my car washed from a place (get free washes from them) 2 weeks ago, the issue might have started after that. Could the sensor be blocked or somehow a fuse burnt? I tried looking at the fuse description in the manuals but don't see any fuse mentioned for ACC/LKAS function.

Even the audio unit diagnostic doesn't help with this.

By resetting the battery, what else do you loose apart from the audio unit settings?

 

[barkode15]

You know, I had a car wash, the ACC stopped working and the dealer found the radar unit cover in the front bumper was popped on upside down. I wonder if the carwash spray blew it out and a carwash worker just tried to pop it in the wrong way. Although that doesn't explain the other times it's stopped working since then.

Pulling the battery actually didn't cause me to lose any settings. Radio presets stayed. As everything resets the dashboard said some safety systems weren't active, but that cleared after about 5 minutes of driving.

I've got an appointment tomorrow at the dealer. I'm going to really stress that I don't want them just pulling the battery, I could do that, and I shouldn't need to reset the car 5 times to keep cruise control working.

 

[RevHappy]

Hopefully the root cause/issue is identified with your car. Best of luck! I'll need it too with my car

 

[RevHappy]

Today I unplugged the battery (ended up unplugging for more than 2 hrs actually), after reconnecting got the 'Drive carefully, systems initializing' message. After 2-3 mins of driving, the car was back to normal (the message disappeared and all functions worked) and ACC works normally now. The accelerator seems to be back to normal sensitivity as well.

Will need to monitor if the issue comes back or not.

 

[barkode15]

Good to hear the battery pull worked for you, hopefully it sticks. I took mine to a different dealer today. They took the time to look at everything and call the Honda tech line who suggested reaiming the front camera. The notes say the camera would not aim and they ordered a new front camera, 36160-TBC-A03. I'll have to go back next week to get it installed.

I have had the windshield replaced twice now, the first time with non-Honda glass. I took it to the dealer afterwards and had the camera re-calibrated. The last time the ACC stopped working the dealer said it was because I had non-OEM glass so I got insurance to pay for a new piece of Honda glass and realignment. That worked for about a month before ACC stopped working again.

Maybe the first glass guy screwed up the camera some how, but that doesn't explain how it took 2 calibrations and worked fine afterwards.

 

[RevHappy]

I've heard of issues with windshield replacements done with non-oem glass on models with Honda Sensing. My car's windshield has actually been cracked since 2016 (it's middle of the screen and doesn't impair driver vision) and I haven't got it replaced yet. Also the fact that my province (state for you guys ) is renowned for glass chips has stopped me to get it replaced until it's no longer feasible, knowing the new one will get a chip within no time.

If I do though, I'll get my insurance to pay for the Honda OEM glass from the dealership. Speedyglass offers the windshield for 650odd but then charges close to 800 for the calibration. Strangely, the dealer one comes installed for 850 with all in.

 

[barkode15]

Just a quick update: The dealer replaced the front facing camera 2 weeks ago and reset the system. Everything worked fine with the ACC until yesterday when I tried to turn it on. ACC Off flashes, cruise control won't turn on, and the dead zone in the gas pedal came back. I'm taking it back in this weekend to see if they can find something else wrong with it. Almost seems like it could be a gas pedal position sensor or something.

 

[RevHappy]

Hmm, how old is your car? I'm just thinking if these issues could be related to the battery in any way.

My car's issues haven't reoccured since I reset the battery terminal.

 

[barkode15]

It's about 20 months old. Battery has tested fine everytime it's been at the dealer.

I took it in again and they kept troubleshooting. This time the instrument cluster came up as the possible cause according to Honda Tech support. They've ordered a new cluster and I have to wait for it to fail again so they can make sure this part actually fixes it.

So far I'm at:
2 windshields
1 camera
3 camera recalibrations
about 6 battery resets
and soon: 1 instrument cluster

Fingers crossed the cluster fixes it

 

[Da5hi30i2d]

It's about 20 months old. Battery has tested fine everytime it's been at the dealer.

I took it in again and they kept troubleshooting. This time the instrument cluster came up as the possible cause according to Honda Tech support. They've ordered a new cluster and I have to wait for it to fail again so they can make sure this part actually fixes it.

So far I'm at:
2 windshields
1 camera
3 camera recalibrations
about 6 battery resets
and soon: 1 instrument cluster

Fingers crossed the cluster fixes it

Any updated by any chance , having a similar issue

Sponsored