[queenofdnile]

(Almost) absolutely loving my new '19 2.0T/6-speed Accord. I've had a 5-speed 2000 CR-V since new and it's been nearly flawless for 145,000 miles. Not so the Accord. At just 3,000 miles, October 16, cruising I-95 at 75 mph in the rain, the check engine light comes on and the car immediately goes into "limp mode." I'd been on the road for about three hours at the time. The nearest dealer took a couple of hours to decide to change the spark plug in the #1 cylinder. I got back on the road, for another 90 miles, then the 225 home and all was fine. A week later, it went to Baltimore and back, 1,000 miles total in two days, and ran fine except for when the car was good and warm, the idle was rough. Not like the serious vibrations I'm reading about in this forum, but enough to notice that it's not the usual smooth idle. The car sat in the garage for three days after that trip, then I tried to get to the grocery store (not raining - dry) and made it three miles before another check engine light and limp mode again. 4,800 miles this time. Good thing it's a manual; I barely made it back home. The dealer (the one I bought it from) got it last Monday. They've had it a week, done all kinds of tests including smoke-testing the turbo (there was mention of water getting in the engine somehow but they've backed off on that.) They found nothing wrong but they talk about the #1 cylinder again. They want me to keep driving it! I'm the kind of driver who's always thinking about what to do "if", but really - these twisty narrow roads around here leave no margin for "limp mode" and women sitting waiting for wreckers anywhere these days get nervous.

I really like this car - better, in fact, than the 2014 Mercedes C250 Sport I traded for it - but having this happen twice in the first three months, and before it's had its first oil change, is pretty alarming. More alarming is that I find no mention of this happening to anybody else...

Thank you -

 

[Fired00d]

First off welcome to the site glad to have you join us.... Regarding your issue... Wow... that sucks!!! Hopefully this will get sorted out, corrected (quickly) and you can again enjoy your car.

 

[queenofdnile]

Thank you - I've been itchy to take it to Carolina Motorsports Park for a Turn One Track day but don't dare: getting run over by a Corvette when it goes into limp mode, or explaining exactly where it died again to Honda.... not great ideas, either one!

 

[Dengine]

This exact issue happened to me once within my first 1k miles. Driving in the rain, on the highway up an incline the car went into limp mode. Restarting the car made the issue go away. It has not happened since in 5k miles. If it does happen again, I will bring it into the dealer but I worry there will be no code stored for them and they will not see the cause. I have heard of this same issue happening to other accord owners in the rain as well. There is an issue that has not been identified as of yet if you ask me.

 

[StarCrazee]

I think I experienced the same thing last night, in the rain, with my 2019 2.0T Touring model with <10k miles. Flashing engine light, I was moderately accelerating down an on-ramp from Honda Parkway to US33 N, the power output was cut to half (or more). I pulled off the road and started to back up the ramp to get off the highway when I decided to pull off and shut the car off.

The car restarted fine and I made it home without any recoccurance then or during a short trip today. I remain puzzled by this and my confidence in the car has been deeply shaken.

I’m due for my A1 service and I will talk to the service center about it when I call to make the appointment.

 

[Fired00d]

I think I experienced the same thing last night, in the rain, with my 2019 2.0T Touring model with <10k miles. Flashing engine light, I was moderately accelerating down an on-ramp from Honda Parkway to US33 N, the power output was cut to half (or more). I pulled off the road and started to back up the ramp to get off the highway when I decided to pull off and shut the car off.

The car restarted fine and I made it home without any recoccurance then or during a short trip today. I remain puzzled by this and my confidence in the car has been deeply shaken.

I’m due for my A1 service and I will talk to the service center about it when I call to make the appointment.

Document (remember) the date/time of this incident... I would think they should be able to pull this occurrence from data saved of the fault code being thrown.

 

[StarCrazee]

Thanks for the tip, I’ll do that.

 

[NvousCustoms]

I think I experienced the same thing last night, in the rain, with my 2019 2.0T Touring model with <10k miles. Flashing engine light, I was moderately accelerating down an on-ramp from Honda Parkway to US33 N, the power output was cut to half (or more). I pulled off the road and started to back up the ramp to get off the highway when I decided to pull off and shut the car off.

The car restarted fine and I made it home without any recoccurance then or during a short trip today. I remain puzzled by this and my confidence in the car has been deeply shaken.

I’m due for my A1 service and I will talk to the service center about it when I call to make the appointment.

Dtc will be stored in the pcm. When you go in for service let them know your vehicles check engine light came on and they will do a warranty dtc pull. I’ve seen valves drop in 1.5t accords. Turbos fail in 2.0 accords and type Rs let me know what dtc they pull and what they fixed. Interested to see what they find.

 

[jbtuff]

This happened to me too and many others. Lots of posts about this at the driveaccord forum.
Most likely explanation is that the turbo sucks in water and air, soaking the air filter and/or the MAF sensor in wet conditions and when the throttle is wide open. From the forum:
"MAF getting wet, damp during wide open throttle (WOT) makes loads of sense. That turbo is taking in gobs of air and carrying the moisture to the MAF. A bad MAF can mimic misfires too, so a compromised MAF sensor (wet) could easily kill the engine power. WOT, rain and turbo air volume across the MAF sounds VERY feasible."

Bad design by Honda

 

[jbtuff]

Here is a copied post from the other forum
Drove through some rain for about an hour and my check engine light started to blink in the fast lane. Vehicle loss power and I could not accelerate with a big truck approaching from the rear and a car blocking the right lane. I put my hazard lights on and was able to slowly make my way to the emergency lane. I have read several people had the same problem and a friend also had the problem on their 2018. So I knew I needed to stop the vehicle and restart it would probably fix the problem. I restarted the car and drove home but felt a few misfires. I have owned a few vehicles including 2006 Honda Civic, 2007 Honda Odyssey, 2012 Honda CRV and never had a problem. After popping the hood I can see the air intake seems to be a terrible design and in a place to suck in water. I opened the airbox and water was inside, so this sucks. I only have 3200 miles on it so I will take it to the dealership and sure they will do the typical dealership run around.

Hope Honda gets enough complaints that they address the bad design. I worry about my wife driving the car and not knowing how to handle the problem and getting rear-ended.

 

[queenofdnile]

Well at least I'm not the only one... But - the second time my car did this it was dry, not a cloud in the sky, and the car had been sitting in the garage for three days, not driven. I'm about to leave for a 1500-mile trip to Florida and back and as usual in this car, I'll keep pretty much to the right lane.... though it's got over 7,000 miles now, has been fine since 4,800 and it's been driven in some epic Southeast rain recently.

 

[ronjon57]

just had this same complain May 25th 2020 in my 2018 exl with14k miles
driving on 95 in the rain and vehicle went into limp mode with check engine light flashing, light stop flashing after about 3 minutes ,drove home at speed about 40mph
check vehicle the next day for any water intrusion, none. vehicle stated up up ok and everything sound ok.
drove out the next day, no rain and i went into wot check engine started flash and went into limp mode, pull over and restart and everything was alright again.
came home and check for codes. misfire in cly#1 and #4 plus random misfire.
going to drive it today again and if it act up i am taking it to the dealer

 

[r1coder]

Same exact issue here. 1000 miles on a 2020 2.0t, uphill in the rain, went into limp mode. Got home, turned off the car, started again and it seemed fine.
Going back to the dealer ASAP to have them see if an error code was logged.

 

[ronjon57]

Same exact issue here. 1000 miles on a 2020 2.0t, uphill in the rain, went into limp mode. Got home, turned off the car, started again and it seemed fine.
Going back to the dealer ASAP to have them see if an error code was logged.

seem the culprit is the location of the inlet for the air box in the grill, so it picking up moister in the air from the rain that kick up in the front and accumulate on the mass air flow sensor causing the misfire

 

[Bill in SRQ]

To All:
This is super helpful!! I experienced a similar thing last month, June 2020 (2019 Accord 2.0T Sport/6-MT).Turning off the car and restarting cleared the issue. The dealer found no stored codes which was doubly concerning. I associated the Limp Mode issue with the Honda Sensing suite, but the combo of moisture + WOT affecting the MAF seems much more plausible. Will be circling back to my dealer...Honda needs to fix this!
See my post

 

[Bill in SRQ]

seem the culprit is the location of the inlet for the air box in the grill, so it picking up moister in the air from the rain that kick up in the front and accumulate on the mass air flow sensor causing the misfire

We seem to be experiencing the same failure mode. So here's my deal. On the 4th attempt, I got through to Honda's National Customer Care line. This was after the local dealer claimed to have no idea and they've never heard of this problem before (I'm inclined to believe them). I tried to tease out of Honda Customer Care whether this was a known issue, but they were quite polite, yet too cagey to be pinned down on that. So here's the "what to do"--we've got to get on the horn, and file a complaint with these guys. They are going to prioritize this based on how many folks are affected. Honda is doing great on sales but not so great on quality/reliability right now--let's hope they're motivated to nip this thing in the bud and protect their brand, before someone gets hurt!.

Here's where to call:
Honda complaints contacts
Call Customer Care on 1-800-999-1009

They are west coast--their hours are 8am-8pm Eastern time, M-F. Be prepared for a 30 minute wait on hold before you get a person.

 

[Bill in SRQ]

Well at least I'm not the only one... But - the second time my car did this it was dry, not a cloud in the sky, and the car had been sitting in the garage for three days, not driven. I'm about to leave for a 1500-mile trip to Florida and back and as usual in this car, I'll keep pretty much to the right lane.... though it's got over 7,000 miles now, has been fine since 4,800 and it's been driven in some epic Southeast rain recently.

So you've seen the problem in dry weather, and did NOT see the problem in torrential rain...You're blowing the pattern, Queen! Do you recall whether you applied WOT during the rain storm? I'm guessing the problem doesn't show up more often, because--who pegs the throttle at highway speeds on a rainy day (besides me!)?

Also, do you recall throttle position on the day when you experienced the failure in dry weather?

 

[Mutley7643]

I've had it happen to me twice so far both times I was in econ mode with the cruise control on. Each time upon hitting the gas the car went into limp mode, dry conditions both times one on my way to Miami next on my way to Louisiana. Both times the dealerships found nothing at all. Then at 17,000 miles coming off of the interstate the car downshifted hard in 5 or 6. Next day took to dealership, had a seat within 10 minutes the tech asked me about reverse? I said I had no problem with it, he then informed it was gone. New transmission put in at 17,000 miles.
Both times car went into limp mode I had a Bluetooth obd plugged in in which it showed multiple pending codes. The dealership said they could find nothing. I showed them my screen shots but they said their computer did not read anything pending. Here is the codes that it threw each time. The very first time the dealership in south Florida told me it was probably bad gas and put seafoam in the gas tank. So far since the new transmission it has not happened knock on wood.

 

[queenofdnile]

So you've seen the problem in dry weather, and did NOT see the problem in torrential rain...You're blowing the pattern, Queen! Do you recall whether you applied WOT during the rain storm? I'm guessing the problem doesn't show up more often, because--who pegs the throttle at highway speeds on a rainy day (besides me!)?

Also, do you recall throttle position on the day when you experienced the failure in dry weather?

Bill ~

No WOT the first time, as I was up to highway speed in 6th gear and had been for a few miles. It just bogged and the Check Engine light came on. It was raining.

The second time, the car had been sitting in the (dry) garage for three days, and it was dry and sunny when it happened. I was accelerating up throught third gear but not at WOT then either; the speed limit is 45 at that spot.

Sorry...!

 

[ronjon57]

always days after rain encounter, moisture retain in the air filer and intake and will accumulate on the mass air flow meter again until the moisture completely gone