Honda Civic headlights dimming

Many cars turn the aircon on when you select demist to dry the air. Check in your handbook to see.

Chris

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It is a known thing on the Accords, but not so much on the Civic. The air/con automatically switches on if you direct the air to the screen, at night it would be obvious as the green light on the switch will illuminate!

It does this on my Civic, but whether it's related to the fact I have climate control or not, I don't know. The manual is, erm, unclear...

As you say, the A/C light comes on. And stays on even if I alter the vent control to anything other than demist. It must be switched off by hand. I hardly notice the A/C cutting in and out at all, and can't say any difference in headlight output is noticeable, other than at idle.

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No, all the new Civics have this feature if fitted with A/C.

Yes, that's normal. I first saw this behaviour on Scorpios some ten years ago.

As I say, this isn't common on the Civic, only the Accord. However, there aren't too many Type S versions out there, so it could be unique to your model.

I work at a dealership, if you mail me your reg number I'll check to see if there are any bulletins for this.

Cheers.

I tried some experiments last night. The headlight dimming problem is definitely related to the aircon switching on. Does anyone know if the compressor is directly driven from the engine or if they are electrically driven.

I suspect that Honda are fitting cheap alternators that don't have sufficient power output. So when it's dark and you want to demist the windows, the aircon kicks in, the lights go dim and you can't see where you are going. Great!

Now that I've had the car for a while, I'm finding all sorts of niggles:-

• The turning circle is crap. You end up having to do three point turns to get in and out of parking spaces.

• The bonnet slope means you can't see where the front of the car is. That makes parking and getting in and out of tight spaces (including my garage) a nightmare.

• There is a really annoying clicking/rattle noise coming from behind front the passenger door - sounds a bit like a geiger counter. The Honda dealer said I need to have a new window regulator fitted. The car's only 6 months old!

• There is no clock on the dash other than the one in the radio. That means when the ignition is off you can't tell the time.

• There's no light in the boot.

• The rear view mirror is mounted so far forward it's difficult to reach to operate the dimmer at night. There's no automatic dimming rear view mirror option.

• Despite supposedly having a 160BHP 2 litre engine The Type S has poor torque at low revs compared to my previous car - an old 130BHP 2 litre

8v Cavalier SRi (Best car I've ever owned and I regret getting rid of it).

I'm seriously thinking of selling the car and buying a Golf GTI instead.

brian_mk ( snipped-for-privacy@bkeen.freeserve.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Almost certainly mechanically driven.

Not applicable if it's mechanically driven - it's just the aircon kicking in dragging the idle - and hence alternator output - down until the ECU chucks a bit more juice in to bring it back up.

Leave the climate with the aircon on auto - they won't steam up in the first place. When you get into the car on a wet day and they steam up, wait until they demist before driving off. Then you'll be able to see where you're going, because the windows will be clear.

Didn't you find that out on the test drive?

Didn't you find that out sitting in one in the showroom?

Free. Warranty.

Didn't you find that out sitting in one in the showroom?

Didn't you find that out looking at one in the showroom?

Didn't you find that out sitting in one in the showroom?

Didn't you find that out sitting in one in the showroom? But, yes, it's a revvy 16v engine with a high power output. Of course it has no low-end torque. They're all like that.

You've either not owned many cars or only owned some REAL dogs.

Will you at least take a passing glance at one of those before spending shedloads of money?

My now getting on a bit BMW 528 is 24 valve and doesn't lack low end torque. It seems to have a flatter torque curve than my Rover SD1 which definitely comes 'on cam'.

Probably due to the variable valve timing.

=== Not applicable if it's mechanically driven - it's just the aircon kicking in dragging the idle - and hence alternator output - down until

the ECU chucks a bit more juice in to bring it back up. ===

Not so - the headlight dimming also happens when travelling at speed.

As for: === Didn't you find that out sitting in one in the showroom? ===

You only really start to finding the problems after driving a car for a week or so. Next time I plan to hire the same model car for a few days before I buy.

brian_mk ( snipped-for-privacy@bkeen.freeserve.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Like the lack of a boot light? The lack of a clock? The visibility of the front bonnet edge? The turning circle? The position of the mirror? The presence of auto-dimming?

You might - they're all things I'd look for and notice fairly damn quickly if they were important to me.

Mechanically driven, but has an electro-magnetic clutch to engage the drive (as do most a/c systems).

Yeah, lots of cars are like that now, you want bigger wheels? they gotta go somewhere!

Huh, no worse than most other cars IMHO.

And?

Yes, go and read the manual, you can set it to display the time when it's off.

There should be, are you sure it's not been disconnected?

How many automatic dipping mirrors have you seen on cars at this level?

That's the first time I've ever heard that one, I must admit.

Yes, it's a VTEC engine, the power cuts in at 6000rpm.

Which is a different car.

I'm not saying those things are high on my priority list. I'm saying that there are things that you only notice after you've driven a car for a few days. How many times have you taken a car for a test drive at night or tried to park it in your garage or taken it for a long drive up the motorway?

Do you work for Honda by any chance or do you just like winding people up?

Th> brian_mk ( snipped-for-privacy@bkeen.freeserve.co.uk) gurgled happily, sounding much like

It does sound a bit like a momentary increase in load for the electrical system causing the problem, so if something that uses quite a bit of juice is automatically kicking-in there you have it.

Aircon uses quite a bit of juice, but so also can a few other things such as the engine cooling fan, the heater motor, the heated window elements etc.

If it isn't causing a problem simply flag it at the next service, (or perhaps when you take the car in after a bit having found a few other faults!), so it goes on the service record for future reference.