[mitchellbacf]

The car was registered in October 2022. I have had the demisting problem since new.
The sticky steering has recently developed. At 12 moths old I made a 250 mile journey and the car was parked for a week. On my return the battery was completely flat such that I couldn't get in the car without using the special key. Honda Assist attended and started the vehicle. Unfortunately, all the warning lights were simultaneously red and some where flashing. The drive was stuck in normal and couldn't be changed. Dealer had the car for 2 weeks and following discussion with Honda, a full software update was installed. The car


used to easily achieve 65 mpg on a full tank. Since the update the car is averaging 40mpg.☹

The car was registered in October 2022. I have had the demisting problem since new.
The sticky steering has recently developed. At 12 moths old I made a 250 mile journey and the car was parked for a week. On my return the battery was completely flat such that I couldn't get in the car without using the special key. Honda Assist attended and started the vehicle. Unfortunately, all the warning lights were simultaneously red and some where flashing. The drive was stuck in normal and couldn't be changed. Dealer had the car for 2 weeks and following discussion with Honda, a full software update was installed. The car


used to easily achieve 65 mpg on a full tank. Since the update the car is averaging 40mpg.☹

Blimey you have been unlucky, there is no way the car should only be averaging 40mpg, surely they could have a test of the emissions they must be way over normal to give those figures. It sounds to me like the HEGO sensor may be faulty telling the car it is colder than it really is, a bit like the choke staying on all the time. I had that problem once on a Ford Orion the car drove perfectly but was terrible on fuel Ford had to replace it and the entire exhaust system as it damaged the catalytic converter. I'm afraid I can't come up with an explanation for your steering other than the reasons that have been stated on the US cars of which you probably already know about, the EPS gets mentioned a fair bit.

 

[Alrat]

I would be very surprised if Honda would treat its own home market to inferior demisting as they drive on the left the same as we do as do a very large proportion of the world's population, surely it's a lot easier than changing the whole dashboard and steering wheel position it makes no sense they would do that with the vents to cut costs. I'm also struggling to work out which vents are being referred to as mine are in the middle and the two sides by the windscreen, the vents behind the mesh grill do not demist the windscreen so I am a little puzzled about this whole discussion.

I found a picture of the left hand drive dash from the mk11 and the windscreen vent (top of image) is also off-centre with a bias towards the passenger side. It's a bit odd that Honda have the vent more focused on the passenger side. It's unlikely that only Tom11 and I have this issue, with the windscreen clearing better and quicker on the passenger side. When the windscreen is thickly misted it takes a long time to clear and much longer on the driver side unfortunately. Even more frustrating for me as I sit there for 10 mins waiting, as my wife has a fiesta with quick clear windscreen and drives off in a few seconds 😠

 

[Roscoe P Coltrane]

FYI, the missing image is a known issue and is being worked on by VS

It's happened before but this time they are having issues finding the cause

The only alternative is to use a hosting site like Imgur

 

[mitchellbacf]

FYI, the missing image is a known issue and is being worked on by VS

It's happened before but this time they are having issues finding the cause

The only alternative is to use a hosting site like Imgur

I thought something was wrong I can't see the image either. I'm still struggling to understand this vent business as my vents are exactly evenly spaced across the windscreen in the middle and in the same position on both sides I have measured them, also my windscreen clears exactly the same on both sides at the same time, the boost button on the dash seems to be the best way.

 

[Alrat]

View attachment 37166

I found a picture of the left hand drive dash from the mk11 and the windscreen vent (top of image) is also off-centre with a bias towards the passenger side. It's a bit odd that Honda have the vent more focused on the passenger side. It's unlikely that only Tom11 and I have this issue, with the windscreen clearing better and quicker on the passenger side. When the windscreen is thickly misted it takes a long time to clear and much longer on the driver side unfortunately. Even more frustrating for me as I sit there for 10 mins waiting, as my wife has a fiesta with quick clear windscreen and drives off in a few seconds 😠

Shame there's an issue displaying images,thanks Kremmen, here's a link.

 

[mitchellbacf]

Shame there's an issue displaying images,thanks Kremmen, here's a link.

Well, I have just been out and exactly measured the position of the vent and it is indeed slightly biased towards the passenger side, but looking at this photo and measuring it it appears to be again biased towards the passenger side so it appears to be wrong for left-hand drive cars as well, I have been on the American and Canadian gen 11 forum and have not found any complaints about demisting the passenger side first, the bias is around 100 mm not really enough to make a lot of difference I would have thought.

 

[Roscoe P Coltrane]

Over the years I've had many cars that initially misted over inside. I put it down to a fact of life and just waited for a bit of heat, or more recently the aircon to kick in to dry it

Normally only a few minutes

Since having aircon cars for a few decades and running it every day regardless of season it does help keep the inside air dryer and the windscreen doesn't mist up as bad on first startup

 

[Victoria S]

By heater do you mean the fan? what if you have no aircon on and just the fan on a low setting with the temp set to say 22 degrees, as I said my fuel consumption is averaging over 60 mpg even with the fan running I can get over 80 mpg on some urban runs I have never heard of your problem on any other review of the car, mine switches to EV mode frequently even if I have the blower on and heat coming out of the vents but I will try your experiment and see if it indeed does switch the EV mode on more frequently.

I'm averaging early 40s MPG - 60-80 sounds like a dream! Admittedly I have only had my Civic less than a month, but the MPG seems to have settled now after building up for a while with both urban and motorway driving. And not just settled - reduced again. Max I've achieved is 45. I have the blowers on low with heat about 23, but I do like a heated seat. Any advice?! Am I just being impatient?

 

[mitchellbacf]

I'm averaging early 40s MPG - 60-80 sounds like a dream! Admittedly I have only had my Civic less than a month, but the MPG seems to have settled now after building up for a while with both urban and motorway driving. And not just settled - reduced again. Max I've achieved is 45. I have the blowers on low with heat about 23, but I do like a heated seat. Any advice?! Am I just being impatient?

What sort of distance are your journeys? Yesterday I drove to Gloucester and back to Pill about 78 miles a mix of fast A road A38 and the M5 motorway the fuel computer said 74.6mpg on getting back even on fairly short runs of around 12 miles I'm getting around 55 to 60mpg on the country roads, it tries to switch to EV as often as it can especially in town or through the village, my car has only done 850 miles so I'm expecting it to get even better, if it's any consolation it may have something to do with my age and style of driving (I'm 67) I doubt 35 years ago I would have got the kind of mpg I get now lol. another tip set one of your trips A or B to reset every time you start a new journey and leave the other one alone that way you can see what you get in different scenarios whilst the other will give you a long term average as the longer you leave it the less it will change hope that helps.

 

[Victoria S]

I've done a couple of motorway journeys of 150 miles, a few 15-ish miles, then the rest have been very short journeys around town. It switches to EV a lot but also switches back out of it very fast. I may be a little younger than 67 but I'm a very careful driver and I'm trying to use the regenerative braking effectively, and I've got the car in ECON mode pretty much all the time.
How do I do that with the trips? Thank you!

 

[mitchellbacf]

I've done a couple of motorway journeys of 150 miles, a few 15-ish miles, then the rest have been very short journeys around town. It switches to EV a lot but also switches back out of it very fast. I may be a little younger than 67 but I'm a very careful driver and I'm trying to use the regenerative braking effectively, and I've got the car in ECON mode pretty much all the time.
How do I do that with the trips? Thank you!

I've done a couple of motorway journeys of 150 miles, a few 15-ish miles, then the rest have been very short journeys around town. It switches to EV a lot but also switches back out of it very fast. I may be a little younger than 67 but I'm a very careful driver and I'm trying to use the regenerative braking effectively, and I've got the car in ECON mode pretty much all the time.
How do I do that with the trips? Thank you!

What do you mean how do I do that with the trips? I have to say if you have done a couple of motorway journeys of that length it is not the ideal conditions for a self-charging hybrid, on solely motorway journeys I would expect and have had myself high 40s and low 50s it's forte is urban driving and A roads, as I said set trip A so it resets every time you turn off the ignition in the settings and that will give you a chance to compare your consumption on different roads better, then you can switch to B to see your long term average. oh and without trying to teach granny to suck eggs the re-gen only stays on in Sports mode for some strange reason otherwise it continually switches off as soon as you brake or accelerate.

 

[Victoria S]

I’m now getting 45-50mpg, which seems to be down to two things - warmer weather (14C instead of 7) and filling up with fuel for the second ever time. When I got the car with its first full tank, the computer was saying 4mpg because it was brand new and had nothing to work with - after refuelling, it jumped up to 55mpg straight away. I was largely just being impatient; hopefully I’ll continue to see further improvement.

 

[mitchellbacf]

I’m now getting 45-50mpg, which seems to be down to two things - warmer weather (14C instead of 7) and filling up with fuel for the second-ever time. When I got the car with its first full tank, the computer was saying 4mpg because it was brand new and had nothing to work with - after refuelling, it jumped up to 55mpg straight away. I was largely impatient; hopefully, I’ll continue to see further improvement.

That's pretty well exactly what you would expect from mixed driving as I said constant motorway speeds of 65/75 are not the Civcs strongest point, I average around the high forties and low fifties so it sounds like your car is just fine, cold weather is never a cars friend and like you I expect the mpg will improve a bit as we move into Spring and Summer.

 

[Alrat]

I’m now getting 45-50mpg, which seems to be down to two things - warmer weather (14C instead of 7) and filling up with fuel for the second ever time. When I got the car with its first full tank, the computer was saying 4mpg because it was brand new and had nothing to work with - after refuelling, it jumped up to 55mpg straight away. I was largely just being impatient; hopefully I’ll continue to see further improvement.

I'm noticing an improvement in mpg due to the warmer weather too, it was 14 degrees one day last week and I barely had the heater on for my 25 min commute. I managed 72 mpg up from low 40s when the temperatures were lower at 5 or 6 degrees. I'm really happy to see high mpg again, as I was also starting to think my all season tyres were having and impact on mpg, as well as the heater being on. Warmer weather means less windscreen demisting required too, phew.

 

[FordConvert]

I saw an old thread on the site about the 11th gen windscreen demister and was going to reply, but didn't want to resurrect an old thread. So here we go, I hope this helps advise anyone interested in finding out how it performs, or doesn't.

My experience is that the windscreen demister is pretty poor, especially in cold weather. When you start the car and turn on the heater, the engine will start, as it needs to for warm air to be produced. If you press the windscreen demist button immediately, full air is directed at the windscreen, but as it's cold it does nothing, if the screen is frozen, it often compounds the issue, by actually misting up the inside of the window, especially if you use the recycled air button, which just seems to mist the screen. The better, but still not very effective option, is to leave the heater on auto, which doesn't start blowing air, until the engine is warm enough to produce warm air. Normally the system is intelligent enough to direct the air to the windscreen initially, but you may have to do it manually with the windscreen demist button once warm, if it's directing it elsewhere.

Ridiculously, the part of the windscreen that gets least air and always demists last, is the drivers side, directly in the drivers view, which is very frustrating. I've lost count of the number of times I've set off to work, not feeling particularly safe, as I lean over to the passenger side. As we all know, if you wipe the inside of the screen with a cloth, it ends up a mess and is so difficult to clean. It's just not worth it.

It appears the dash mounted blowers don't actually extend far enough over on the drivers side to clear the screen adequately in a reasonable time. I often find myself with my hand over the dash blower that's directed at drivers side window, trying to direct the air flow to the windscreen, to demist the bit the blower doesn't reach, the most important bit. It's that bad, I'm thinking of creating a plastic fin to redirect the air to the windscreen, crazy huh, thanks Honda.

You can walk away from the car with the engine started and leave it to warm up, you just get a minor external beeping noise to warm you. Of course it's at your own risk too, as the car can be driven off with no keys, I've tested it.

One last thing, having the heater on hurts fuel economy, really hurts it, as the engine will run most of the time. My 25 minute commute changes from 60mpg to 40mpg.

I've reposted this (and added a bit) from the old thread:

Coming from Ford cars with their excellent electrically-heated front windscreens, I was disappointed it wasn't an option on my 73 reg Civic e:hev Advance.

At the first frosty window morning (there haven't been many in the UK since I bought it!) I went out and tried it. The engine started up and the blower came on. As others have said, it seems to obtain its heat from the engine. It took 7 minutes to clear the screen, whereas my previous Ford Focus took about 90 seconds to completely melt the ice.

One thing I noticed as it was laboriously warming the glass, was that the left side of the screen cleared before the right. I'm in the UK so would expect the right side to be prioritised or the whole screen done at the same time. On looking at the vent arrangement it appears that it is offset to the left, ie the left (passenger) side gets the most heat. If you measure it, the active part of the vent is offset about 2" to the passenger side, thus clearing the passenger side first. Also, even when fully cleared it feels like the driver's side demisting is very 'underpowered'. This is a combination of the actual vent positions plus of course how much flow is directed to each side in the design. As it's a RHD car this seems unhelpful.

Although Japan drives on the same side of the road as the UK and one might expect them to get it right for their home market, the majority of Civics made will be for the much bigger LHD market and that the RHD version will be a 'conversion' from the default LHD model. I suspect it's one of those design compromises that happen with any manufactured product, but I do wish they hadn't!

As a related observation, I found it disconcerting that when I pressed the power button the engine started immediately, even though I was just sitting there entering the satnav destination etc. I soon worked out it was because the fan/aircon was on and it was trying to heat up the car to the expected temperature using the engine heat. What I do now is automatically turn the fan off at the end of a journey and now most days the engine remains off unless the EV charge is very low and it comes on to top it up.

 

[Alrat]

You'll have had quite a few of your questions and observations addressed above by others. Hopefully that's helpful. You're starting to note some of the nuances of the Civic and how to deal with them. The car is great and the mpg, if you drive to maximise, is stunning. Once you discover this, my advice is not to become obsessed with it, just enjoy driving a great car, how you want to drive it. Who wants to drive around with a light foot all the time to ensure the engine doesn't kick in and you get great mpg. It's fun sometimes to see great mpg, but just enjoy the car, it's a great driving experience.

The screen clearing is a real source of frustration, crazy and dangerous design, to have such an ineffective safety feature. Even if the vent for the side window, that's mounted on top of the dash on the driver's side could divert to the screen it would help. In my experience the best tip is to avoid using the recycled air button, at all costs, it just fogs things up worse.

 

[mitchellbacf]

You'll have had quite a few of your questions and observations addressed above by others. Hopefully that's helpful. You're starting to note some of the nuances of the Civic and how to deal with them. The car is great and the mpg, if you drive to maximise, is stunning. Once you discover this, my advice is not to become obsessed with it, just enjoy driving a great car, how you want to drive it. Who wants to drive around with a light foot all the time to ensure the engine doesn't kick in and you get great mpg. It's fun sometimes to see great mpg, but just enjoy the car, it's a great driving experience.

The screen clearing is a real source of frustration, crazy and dangerous design, to have such an ineffective safety feature. Even if the vent for the side window, that's mounted on top of the dash on the driver's side could divert to the screen it would help. In my experience the best tip is to avoid using the recycled air button, at all costs, it just fogs things up worse.

About the fuel consumption, I could not agree more once you have driven the car for a few weeks it quickly becomes obvious the car is brilliant at getting figures most two-litre ICE could only dream about, but you are right there is a lot more to owning the Civic than wringing every last drop of petrol out of it, personally I have the plain speedo display so I don't get fixated by my MPG, we all know it's brilliant so just enjoy the car for what it is.