hesitation&poor gas mileage

dear honda, this is my 2nd wk. w/my ridgeline...and i too am exper.hesitation@ the start & @ turns...pls tell me you @ honda have addressed this issue and have a solution??!! also, getting 13mpg..this is not good!!..particularly when i "baby" the accelerator!!!...help!!:mad:

dear honda, this is my 2nd wk. w/my ridgeline...and i too am exper.hesitation@ the start & @ turns...pls tell me you @ honda have addressed this issue and have a solution??!! also, getting 13mpg..this is not good!!..particularly when i "baby" the accelerator!!!...help!!:mad:


I have the same issues and called the Honda Consumer Relations at # 800-999-1009 to register a complaint you should also do so. The more complaints they get the more likely they are to address this hesitation issue which could be linked to the bad mileage. Check out this thread topic as we are not alone, it's all about hesitation (click link below).

http://www.ridgelineownersclub.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5482

Interesting

I have 7,700 miles on my Ridgline, and I am getting 19 mpg. I get aprox 380 miles + before I fill up., and that is not running on fumes... and i drive my RL pretty hard. I love the engine sound over 3500 RPM, so i dont baby mine.

Interesting

I have 7,700 miles on my Ridgline, and I am getting 19 mpg. I get aprox 380 miles + before I fill up., and that is not running on fumes... and i drive my RL pretty hard. I love the engine sound over 3500 RPM, so i dont baby mine.

WOW.. really? How much of that is city vs highway? I am lucky to get to 250 miles on a tank. I get about 13 MPG city and on the trip last weekend which was all highway at about 75 MPH I averaged just a tad over 15! I'm not complaining since I didn't buy a truck for gas mileage but that is one heck of a difference!

8 months and 8,000 miles. No hesitation and MPG 18/22. No other problems.

i drive 145 miles round trip daily, 25+miles on 2 lane rural highway, cruise set @ 65, and only one stop sign for that stretch. I then have aprox 9 miles through a small town driving 45, I then hop on the Tollway to fish my ride off, cruise set @ 75. I set 1 trip odometer @ every fill up, and today I had 376 miles, I set the 2nd trip odometer when my fuel light goes on, and I had traveled 26 miles with the light on. At the end of the day I do the reverse commute, with a little rush hour traffic until i get far enough west of Chicago.

Your mpg on your RL sounds like my JeepLiberty which weighed only 100 lbs less than the RL, I would get 220 miles per 16 gallon tank. I had to get out of that tank, and get a few more mpg with how much I drive.

like I said I dont baby it, I am always dropping the accelerator to pass someone going slow on that country road i referenced earlier..


Is your drive mostly in the city, or do you haul alot of extra weight? I drive myself and my wife to and from our jobs, and just some small Home Depot Runs on the weekends..No towing.




I have found the RL's engine getting stronger, and better gas mileage as it breaks in.

i drive 145 miles round trip daily, 25+miles on 2 lane rural highway, cruise set @ 65, and only one stop sign for that stretch. I then have aprox 9 miles through a small town driving 45, I then hop on the Tollway to fish my ride off, cruise set @ 75. I set 1 trip odometer @ every fill up, and today I had 376 miles, I set the 2nd trip odometer when my fuel light goes on, and I had traveled 26 miles with the light on. At the end of the day I do the reverse commute, with a little rush hour traffic until i get far enough west of Chicago.

Your mpg on your RL sounds like my JeepLiberty which weighed only 100 lbs less than the RL, I would get 220 miles per 16 gallon tank. I had to get out of that tank, and get a few more mpg with how much I drive.

like I said I dont baby it, I am always dropping the accelerator to pass someone going slow on that country road i referenced earlier..


Is your drive mostly in the city, or do you haul alot of extra weight? I drive myself and my wife to and from our jobs, and just some small Home Depot Runs on the weekends..No towing.




I have found the RL's engine getting stronger, and better gas mileage as it breaks in.

Thanks for the info Jim. 90% of my "normal" driving is in the city, but the highway mileage I mentioned from last weekend was from a full tank burned on I-69 between Indianapolis and Port Huron Michigan. I did notice that there was an audible difference in the sound of the engine if I dropped down to just below 75 MPH so I probably could have gotten a bit more mileage if I had slowed down.

I am not really convinced that I will always get that poor of mileage on the highway because in addition to the speed I was travelling, I also was going against a pretty strong head wind for almost the entire trip. So, under better conditions my guess is my mileage would have been much better.


I most certainly do not baby my Ridge either, a fact that I am sure contributes to my low city mileage.


But, like I said, I didn't buy a truck because I expected good mileage, so no complaints from me.

My RL's build date is 4/05.
I have 10,500 miles.
I drive 65 miles round trip each day, all highway except 3 miles.
I try to keep it at or below 2500 RPM. (I'm babying it!)
I'm running Mobile-1 synthetic oil.
I have a Honda Tonneau cover.
I just installed a roof rack yesterday, so that hasn't been a factor.

I consistently get between 15.5 and 16.5 MPG no matter what I do. Took a short ~300 mile trip last weekend and still got about 16.5 MPG

I have experienced the hesitation. We had 16" of snow a couple of weeks ago. I pulled out making a left hand turn in the snow. As I accelerated the tires didn't spin, but the truck came almost to a total stand-still for several seconds before finally slowly-slowly-slowly starting to roll forward. There was a car coming a short ways off, and my wife got a little nervous thinking I was goofing around.

Are we thinking that there is a direct connection between the hesitation and the poor mileage?

My RL's build date is 4/05.
I have 10,500 miles.
I drive 65 miles round trip each day, all highway except 3 miles.
I try to keep it at or below 2500 RPM. (I'm babying it!)
I'm running Mobile-1 synthetic oil.
I have a Honda Tonneau cover.
I just installed a roof rack yesterday, so that hasn't been a factor.

I consistently get between 15.5 and 16.5 MPG no matter what I do. Took a short ~300 mile trip last weekend and still got about 16.5 MPG

I have experienced the hesitation. We had 16" of snow a couple of weeks ago. I pulled out making a left hand turn in the snow. As I accelerated the tires didn't spin, but the truck came almost to a total stand-still for several seconds before finally slowly-slowly-slowly starting to roll forward. There was a car coming a short ways off, and my wife got a little nervous thinking I was goofing around.

Are we thinking that there is a direct connection between the hesitation and the poor mileage?


Rick, sounds like you should call the Honda 800# and put in your complaint as I did. The hesitation is unacceptable and potentially a safety issue. The more complaints the better chance we have of a fix.

I used to feel the hesitation going around a particular slow turn I make every morning. However, I haven't felt it for months now that I think about it and the last few days tried different speeds and acceleration to see if I could get it to happen again, I can't reproduce it anymore no matter what I try.

There's only one thing I did in the last months I can think would have made any difference and that was fully disconnecting the battery, pos & neg terminals, while I put in my new fuse box.

I know my old expedition said it had some transmition logic that would adjust itself to the drivers habits after about a 1000 miles of learning and it would be reset if the battery was disconnected. I don't think the Ridge has this, at least I've never read or heard it has it.

I'm really skeptical this is a solution but it's the only variable that changed for me, other than the new fuse box but I don't think any changes were made to it other than the door lock fix. At any rate I don't think you have much to lose to try it out. Disconnect both battery terminals and leave them off for more than 3 minutes and then reconnect. Always remove the Negative terminal first and make it the last to put back on.

I know my old expedition said it had some transmition logic that would adjust itself to the drivers habits after about a 1000 miles of learning and it would be reset if the battery was disconnected. I don't think the Ridge has this, at least I've never read or heard it has it.

I think this is EXACTLY what is going on. My Pilot had this issue before. The dealer "reset" the learning mode and it is ok now. (removing the battery will reset this info as well....)

TL

I have experienced the hesitation. We had 16" of snow a couple of weeks ago. I pulled out making a left hand turn in the snow. As I accelerated the tires didn't spin, but the truck came almost to a total stand-still for several seconds before finally slowly-slowly-slowly starting to roll forward.

If your in snow(slippery conditions) with the vsa you can't spin the wheels if you tried! I wanted to but could not.. anyway when the ridge senses slippage (tire spinning) the system will hesitate and keep you safe from swaying off the road. Perhaps yours is in need of calibration?? but it is normal to hesitate in slippery conditions to keep on the road, instead of in a ditch

Well I have had my RT for 2 weeks tomorrow, and just took it to the dealer for the hesitation today @ 400miles. Turns out the service manager has a RL himself, and knew all about the hesitation!! He says it's transmission logic, and "normal". So I called customer service, spoke to a nice guy....he claims the same thing, and that "the pilot and element with automatics have the same trait"....I still told him it's "annoying at best"...and to please find a fix!!;)

My Opinion....I'm pretty sure the "hesitation" some of you seem to experience is really not hesitation in the classic sense. What I have experienced numerous times is the VSA coming on for an instant under hard acceleration. Unless you are looking at the correct spot on the instrument panel at the exact instant the VSA kicks in you won't see the light. I noticed it a few times when pulling out in loose gravel but I really notice it now in the snow or slush. It usually won't happen in straight line starts (both wheels spinning at the same rate) but in corners, especially hard turns the outside wheel has to go farther than the inside wheel (different radius) and if one of the wheels is spinning, the VSA will kick in by reducing throttle and applying brake.
I tested this theory this morning in a slick parking lot. I came to a complete stop, turned the wheel hard left and accelerated. The VSA kicked in immediately with it's preprogrammed actions which seemed like hesitation but was really killing the throttle like it's supposed to do. I then turned the VSA off, came to a complete stop, accelerated and had no perceived "hesitation " whatsoever.

Is this a safety issue? I won't be the judge of that now that I know the "temperament" of my truck and "expect" this to happen in certain conditions. Most of the time the VSA performs flawlessly. I think it is a great safety feature, especially at higher speeds (icy bridge, slick spots etc) but I automatically turn the VSA off in snowy stop and start conditions, especially with the steep hills we have around here. I know I will be going slow and ever since I couldn't go up a slick hill from a standing start (with traffic behind me) because I was spinning and my VSA kicked in, which killed my acceleration...I then turned it off, spun a little and up the hill I went. I KNOW now not to put it to the floor from a stopped position with my wheels cut hard left or right. It will spin and the VSA will kick in. I now smoothly accelerate until straight and then romp on it. I have had my truck since July and I am slowly learning the mannerisms of my ridgeline. I don't know if this is the same problem as others have experienced, but I think it could be. Hope this helps.

PS
Could Honda fix this? Maybe...I think if they could re-program the VSA to automatically be disengaged when the truck goes to 0 mph, and not re-engage until 5 mph.
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Hmmm? is this a thread on hesitation or mileage. My RL has hesitated and it is always on a turn from a stop . I have noot noticed it lately, maybe I am getting used to it . I think my mileage is good I get a consistant 15 city and my high was 19.7 on I-5 between Tracy and Bakersfield and my average speed was 84 mph just to keep up with traffic , a friend got 25 as a high going across the country from here to Massachusetts . I think it is the vsa engaging that appears to be hesitation, I will bring this up with my dealer Doug .

I am 100% positive its the VSA sensing un-even wheel rotation...ie outside wheels going faster than inside wheels therefore it must correct by applying brake and slowing down...I do the same hard right with the VSA off and I have no issues.:rolleyes:

100% Vancouver city driving during rush hour am and pm = 15.6 mpg using US gallons about 18 using our big Canuck gallons