My car rolled backwards when I am stopped waiting for a red light to change at the moment I take my foot off the brake and before I put my foot on the gas. Is this normal?

 

It's normal, and it shouldn't roll back too much. The Civic has built in mechanisms to keep it from rolling too far. I remember reading about it in the manual, but don't have it in front of me so I can't say exactly what page. But, if you want to know more the information is there.

 

For HCH's with a CVT:

If you're autostopped, when you take your foot off the brake pedal and the engine is restarting, your brakes won't actually release until you press the gas pedal and the clutch starts to take up.

If you're not autostopped, when you're at a light with your foot on the brake, the car is acting just like it has a manual transmission: the clutch is out and the car is freewheeling. So when you release the brake and hit the gas and the clutch starts to take up, the car can roll a little in that few tenths of a second (particularly if you're slow about getting the gas on).

And then, sometimes you roll into an stoplight and the car autostops and you have the brakes on *so* lightly ('cause you're a good hybrid driver) that the car can actually roll back on you because you don't have the brakes on hard enough to hold it on the grade. :-)

--doug

 

Thanks for the info!

 

Most of the time the hill-holder feature works just fine. There have been a couple of times where the car rolled back unexpectedly after releasing the brake. I've since found that if you apply the brakes firmly (even after you're completely stopped), the hill-holder works better.

I can be on a fairly steep hill (8% grade) and release the brake without rolling backwards at all. I haven't tried it on steeper hills.