general problems of the 2009 Honda Civic

Car accelerated into a garage door unintentionally. The brakes did not work. The problem has not been reproduced. The car was taken to a Honda dealer twice before the accident for the same reasons of sudden unintentional acceleration. The vehicle has been totaled and has not been inspected by anyone. There were no warning indicators that I am aware of.

While pulling into a parking space with foot on the brake pedal, the vehicle violently lunged forward into a block wall. The driver was unable to stop the vehicle by applying the brakes. The driver was hospitalized for 2 days.

The contact owned a 2009 Honda Civic. The contact parked the vehicle and it accelerated on its own. The vehicle traveled approximately fourteen feet and crashed into a wall of a building. The air bags failed to deploy. The contact sustained a fractured sternum and moderate bruising on the chest, shoulder, and foot. Medical attention was required and a police report was filed. The vehicle was destroyed and the manufacturer was notified. The failure mileage was 70,559.

My 2009 (automatic) Honda Civic ex slipped into neutral four during the night. For the first three times, the driver would allow the rpm's to drop causing us to sit in traffic for an undefined period of time before returning the car to the drive position. On the fourth time this happened, driver and I were in a large parking lot making a right turn with a building about a football field away. About halfway through the turn, the car was placed back into drive from neutral and it began to drive itself. As the car accelerated faster and faster the driver tried to slam on the brakes many times without the pedal even budging or the car slowing down in the slightest way. When we tried to turn the steering wheel it locked up in a straight away position, causing the car to hit at least two large curbed medians and go airborne each time. Driver and I braced ourselves as the building came closer. We then hit the third and final curb, the car went airborne again slamming into the building at about six feet high on the wall. All airbags deployed, the passenger window shattered and windshield cracked. Immediately after the crash I proceeded to place the car into park when the shifter itself came out. The car was still trying to drive itself through the building when we crashed. The Civic was considered totaled and the insurance company is further investigating why this happened.

The contact owns a 2009 Honda Civic. The contact was driving approximately 2 mph in a parking space and attempted to engage the brake pedal. Suddenly, her foot was trapped underneath the accelerator pedal causing the vehicle to crash into a pole. The contact stated that the manufacturer installed the accelerator pedal in an extremely high elevated position from the floor which was a safety defect. There were no injuries. A police report was not filed. The front end of the vehicle was completely damaged. The vehicle was towed to an auto collision center with the repair cost of $5,196. 34. The failure mileage was approximately 5,700.

The contact owns a 2009 Honda Civic. While idling at a stop sign the engines rpm's began to rapidly increase, and then the vehicle began to accelerate. Consequently he rear-ended another vehicle. The vehicle has not been diagnosed by the dealership. The current and failure mileages were 22000.

My 2009 Honda Civic is a dangerous car to drive. I took it to the dealer pointing out the dangerous symptoms described in the next paragraph. A test drive there confirmed the experience. The mechanic subsequently adjusted the computer to eliminate the problem. It did not help. Thus this letter. Here are the symptoms. At idle, or very little gas, the engine sometimes speeds up some 200 rpm to 400 rpm and holds it for a second or a few before dropping back to idle rpm, whatever the idle rpm may have been. This can happen while stationary or moving, going forward or in reverse, cold or hot. I am talking about a situation with the right foot on the brake pedal or on no pedal, hands off the steering wheel, air-conditioning off. I know that the rpm change could be caused by the air-conditioning engaging for cooling or for defogging/defrosting and/or for the power steering pump engaging. But this happens without a cause which makes the change in rpm not only annoying but also dangerous as there is no way one could get used to the idiosyncrasy. I should like to point out that these engagements should not cause an appreciable rpm change in any car, and most of my cars I owned were indeed free of this. The 2009 Civic not only reacts to those engagements but also changes rpm entirely on its own. And it is also inconsistent, as the extra pull of the engine may or may occur on every drive. The random rpm increase is dangerous in the sense that with the foot on the brake lightly, the car moves before I can catch up and press harder. The rpm and the car speed change happens also when the car is in an idle motion such as driving across a parking lot. You can feel it accelerating for no reason only to slag back a few yards later. It occurs even during or at the end of the travel the length of the garage. A bad news for the rear wall.

Tl contact owns a 2009 Honda Civic. The contact was driving out of a parking lot. There was pressure applied to the brake pedal with partial pressure to the accelerator pedal. A sudden and unexpected acceleration occurred. The driver was able to slow down. The identical failures occurred on five separate occasions. The vehicle was taken to an authorized dealer. The technician stated the vehicle was operating properly. The failure mileage was 400. The VIN was unavailable.