107 miles out of warranty and a fireworks display of warnings in the dash...

[harrisonjr98]

TL;DR - car is 107 miles past the warranty and throws a temper tantrum on me with multiple CEL codes while driving home in the middle of the night.

Hey all.

Bought my 23 Civic hatch EX-L almost a year ago to the day, and have broadly enjoyed my time with it other than the 3 times I have gone to the dealer to try and get the leaky hatch fixed to no avail (). I have meticulously had all recommended maintenance (oil, filters, etc) completed earlier than their suggested intervals, and have just generally done my damndest to take care of this car. I am proud of my first brand new car purchase and I want my vehicles to last for the long haul.

The other night I was driving through some pretty serious rain from a tropical storm that was moving through, but nothing too intense. I got stuck behind an accident that took over an hour and a half to clear off the interstate, and after idling for that amount of time I was gradually coming back up to highway speed when the check engine light came on and the car began to sort of slow itself down slightly - that's the best way I can describe it. Not a forceful slowdown, but I came to a stop on the shoulder and restarted the car anyway. Light went off. I thought it might be something about having idled for so long perhaps messing with a calibration of some kind, so I didn't think much of it and carried on my way.

30 minutes down the road I go to accelerate in order to make a pass around an 18 wheeler and boom - fairly significant thud noise, awful smell fills the cabin, every single light on the dash goes up in a total fireworks display. It was 4:30 am by this point and I was minutes from home, so after some brief roadside deliberation I decide to go ahead and limp it back into town as it still seemed to be idling alright and it drove okay the rest of the way, despite the incessant beeping and warnings. I grabbed the CEL codes before carting it off to the dealer (who gleefully informed me I was 107 miles out of warranty. The car is less than a year old... assholes.)

Here's what I have:

P0300 - RANDOM MISFIRE
P0301 - CYLINDER 1 MISFIRE
P0304 - CYLINDER 4 MISFIRE
U0416 - INVALID DATA RECEIVED FROM VEHICLE DYNAMICS CONTROL MODULE EVENT INFORMATION
U0420 - EPS CONTROL UNIT MALFUNCTION

Between this and the hatch leaking issues, I am not super impressed with the outlook of this car's engineering quality and longevity. Even though it didn't outright strand me on the side of the road, I have not had anything like this happen on any vehicle anywhere near this mileage/age in my life. And my previous cars were Volkswagens! lol.

I am not ultra savvy with cars. I like driving but don't wrench on them myself, though hoping to change that over time. These codes don't mean much to me, insofar as determining how much trouble I might be in here. I have no idea if this is "mild concern" or "five alarm fire" and I'm not trying to make it sound any worse than it may or may not be.

What I *do* have is a strong feeling that the dealer will reset the EPS and the codes will clear, and they'll just try to send me on my way. If this looks to be a real concern, I don't want them to dismiss me only for it to arrive again later when I don't have any chance of getting the warranty... um, extended... by calling corporate and bitching about it.

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[NoelPR]

Just to be clear.
Your car has over 60K miles?

 

[Timszee]

Just to be clear.
Your car has over 60K miles.

Yeaaaa. I would assume this car doesn't have 60,107 miles. If so, then your car is OUT of warranty. If it doesn't have 60K + miles, then your car IS under warranty and you should probably remind your dealership what the factory warranty is and covers..

 

[a c i d.f l y]

This could be as nebulous as a bad batch of gas. How empty was your tank when this happened?

What was the smell like? Fishy? Smokey? Electrical?

 

[harrisonjr98]

Yeaaaa. I would assume this car doesn't have 60,107 miles. If so, then your car is OUT of warranty. If it doesn't have 60K + miles, then your car IS under warranty and you should probably remind your dealership what the factory warranty is and covers..

36,000 miles I thought was the warranty. I forgot that the powertrain warranty is 60k which is definitely a relief!

This could be as nebulous as a bad batch of gas. How empty was your tank when this happened?

What was the smell like? Fishy? Smokey? Electrical?

Tank was half full. Smell was hard to describe. I’d say a combo of smokey and electrical.

 

[Timszee]

36,000 miles I thought was the warranty. I forgot that the powertrain warranty is 60k which is definitely a relief!



Tank was half full. Smell was hard to describe. I’d say a combo of smokey and electrical.

36k you are still under warranty for engine/trans. If you got on it you might be smelling the cat, at least I think that's what it is. They few times I've run hard through the gears in my Type R I get an odd smell.. Regardless, it's under warranty.

 

[harrisonjr98]

Thanks for the reassurance! I guess I just expected that in an auto (CVT no less, lol) the computer system would prevent something like a throttle input from being problematic under any circumstance.

 

[a c i d.f l y]

Thanks for the reassurance! I guess I just expected that in an auto (CVT no less, lol) the computer system would prevent something like a throttle input from being problematic under any circumstance.

If bad gas misfired in multiple cylinders, it could have blown out the valves and gone into limp. 36k miles is barely enough for breaking in the transmission. Engine should be good for another 200k. Whatever it is, they'll have to fix it under drivetrain warranty.

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