Car not freely moving after jump start

Mar 07, 2024 Last reply: 2 years ago 2 Replies
C

I have a 2013 Honda Accord with a 6 speed manual transmission.



I could not use the car for three months and I had to get it jump started. I noticed two strange things. Once the car was running, almost all the lights in the instrument panel lit up -- I mean all those warning icons. This included the "BRAKE" warning light, even though the parking brake was not engaged.



After about a minute, I tried to back out of the garage and found the car would not move. It was as though the parking brake was on or there was something blocking the wheels. In fact, the back of the car rose up a bit as though there was a block under the rear tire(s). I checked and sure enough, there was nothing.



I engaged and disengaged the parking brake a few times, but the warning light stayed on. I just let in the clutch and hit the gas a bit. The car finally moved. I started to drive and in about another 30 s, suddenly, all the warning lights disappeard. I rechecked by parking and engaging the parking brake. The BRAKE light came on. On disengaging the parking brake, it went off. So far, so good.



The amazing thing is that the car has since behaved as normal. I can guess that all those warning lights came on becuase the on-board computer got all confused and needed time (or a bit of driving) to rest it.



But the real mystery is the fact that the car behaved as if there wsa something impeding in motion when I first tried to reverse. What could that be due to?



As the parking brake is a mechanical thing, I do not think that it got engaged because of the jump start .... unless, there is some electronic interface between the lever and the actual brake.



Any explanation would be greatly appreicated.



tia CR


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D

[retrying as my initial attempt to reply appears to have vanished before being sent]

The only time I've ever seen all of the dashboard lights light up at once was when the alternator was about to fail in my 1999 Accord V6 automatic. It was during the test drive prior to purchase at a dealer, and they replaced the alternator with a new one before I closed the deal to buy the car. No similar problems since then.

I would think that the parking brake is a strictly mechanical interface as well, but I'm not very familiar with that generation of Accord, and given the proliferation of electronics in cars in recent years it's not entirely out of the question that there's some sort of electronic interlock present.

You might get more informed responses by posting your question to one of the higher-traffic Honda forums like Honda-Tech or the Drive Accord forums. This newsgroup used to be reasonably active but it's been virtually dead for a long time.

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C

I totally agree with you about the mechanical link re the parking brake.

I took the car in for the annual safety inspection to my usual, trusted garage. I told them about this and I was told that sometimes the disc brakes can pinch when not used for a long time in cold weather, but they release once driven. That is new to me, but I have never let a car sit still for three months is the dead of winter.

It has been running fine since then ... and the mechanics checked out the brakes as part of the safety inspection. No problems there.

Ah! Most groups like these have pretty much become spam or vacuum! Pity. Glad to know that there are still some who follow this one.

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