2010 LX Vibration at Idle
 

I have a 2010 Honda Civic LX Sedan (Automatic) with about 55,000 miles. When I am stopped at a stoplight with the car is in Drive, I can feel the car vibrating. There is a vibration at idle, in Drive. It’s enough to rattle stuff in the center console if I have loose change or a cup in it. When in Park, the vibration is not noticeable or masked. If I am at a stoplight for 1-2 minutes waiting for the light and I put the driver or passenger side power windows down, the whole car vibrates very strongly for a second and feels like it is going to stall. (The RPMs only dip ever so slightly when this occurs). Then it goes back to the steady vibration again. The vibration does not happen when driving, at least it is not noticeable. At high speeds the car does not shake. It does not happen in conjunction with the cooling fan coming on. The A/C also has no bearing on when this happens; it happens with or without the A/C in use. What’s very weird is that when I turn the headlights on, the vibration is masked!

The CEL is not on. I keep up with regular oil and air filter changes. I had the fuel injector system cleaned in the past few months. I have mentioned it to the dealership and they said they cannot duplicate it, though they have checked the idle with their instrumentation and said it’s normal. The car is not missing or anything. It usually happens once the car has been warmed up, but not always.

This has been happening for about a year. The first time it happened, the dealership did a diagnostics test and could not find anything. When I mentioned it again and brought up doing an Idle Reset (after searching the internet), they did that; but it was only a temporary fix since it’s still happening. When I mentioned it to them yet again, they said the steering wheel was vibrating (Though I never felt that) and that it was the alignment and they redid that, but that didn’t help. The strong vibration that happens when I put the power windows down does occasionally happen on its own, without putting the windows down; but this is pretty infrequent.

Any thoughts or ideas? Thanks!

Have you cleaned the throttle body and throttle plate? Gunk accumulates on the edges of the plate and the bore of the body and makes it sticky coming on and off of idle. I don't think the drive by wire system has a separate idle valve.

Turning electrical stuff on and off varies the load on the engine, which has to be compensated for by changing the air flow to maintain constant rpm.

Hi,

Thanks for the reply. I have not checked that but will certainly look into it. I appreciate the feedback.