The whine is present the moment the car starts in park, when pulled to reverse the pitch changes as the tach revs (car always has a 500+ rpm swing when changing gears) the pitch goes up and down with the tachometer. I have not tried it in neutral yet, but its loud not a faint whine, loud enough that when leaving the shop yesterday dad came out of the barn to see what was making the noise. The noise follows through while driving until the car gets warmed up or it goes over 2000rpm. I am going today to get more fluid from the dealership (40miles one way, the joy lol)

All of this behavior, poor fuel economy, and noises wouldnt bother me nearly as much if it had made it to 220k miles but at 79k it just seems ridiculous. I am afraid to drive it to Tampa or anywhere out of state in the event that I have to buy a transmission and pay to have it towed back to Ohio. Not to mention when I travel I am usually on time constraints, so I cant just chill out for a week somewhere waiting for it to be fixed. I drive A LOT I bought this car 3 months ago and I am at the 8500mile mark. I travel 500+mile trips alot and the point of getting out of my 03 nissan was to not have to worry nearly as much on these trips.

I apologize for the rants I am just super frustrated... when I see people driving relatively normal speeds on the highway 60-70mph and getting 45mpg or more and I drive 55-60 and can hardly obtain 40mpg. At this point it is getting much better in town of about 42.5 according to the trip, and once I hit 60mph or higher it drops off quickly to 35-38mpg and it struggles hard.

Im not sure what exactly cvt slip feels like so im not sure what to look for. However 2 days ago I had to take it up to about 4800rpm to pull back into heavy traffic, and once it hit 4500 it sort of juttered until I finally let off the pedal. Like it would hit 4500 hiccup a bit and the tach would jump back to 4300 and then right back to 4600 in little spurts. Each jutter (for lack of better wording) was like 2seconds each and it did this even while holding "steady" at 4800. This may be normal, I just VERY rarely exceed 2500rpm in this car.

Thanks so much for the help so far, and dealing with my venting lol I am going to try to do the change today as its been about 400miles since last weekends change.

 

Since it's present in park, I doubt the whine is the CVT. I'd follow the belt and see what's spinning to see if you can identify the source. Maybe even spray the belt with a water bottle to see if it change the sound.

Confirm your engine oil level is good. Low oil will trigger what feels like a rev-limiter. HCH2#2 burns oil. It was so bad, when we bought it, it was 2.5qts low and behaved very similarly at around 4000rpm.

You could also have a spark plug or coil issue. 80K is a little early for replacement (100K), but it's worth a check. I'd pull a few of your front plugs and check them out. If the electrodes are eroded, replace them. Sadly, the DENSO SK20HPR-L11 or NGK ILFR6J-11K OEM plugs are the only viable option, and they're typically $14 each at a parts store... 8 total.

If plugs don't fix the issue, it could be coils. You could buy a couple aftermarket coils at $45 a piece and replace two at a time to see if you can affect change.

I'd like to hear the whine sound and see the rpm bounce in action if you're comfortable taking more video.

Happy to help. I hope you can get this stuff sorted out...

Steve

 

Another mileage killer is a dirty intake. Remove the air filter assembly from intake pipe. Spray throttle body cleaner while revving, to burn off all the carbon deposits.

I've used the 3M (3 part kit) with success in two vehicles also.

I forgot about this one. See if the previous owner was not good on changing air filter, you will have those deposit issues.

I hope its not your CVT. I find it hard to believe that it would have issues at 79K, unless the previous owner drove many hills and had to rev high.

I drive mostly flat highways. I am at 158K and CVT feels strong.

 

The whine is gone except for about 20seconds when first started after the last cvt change and since it has warmed up a bit. I have been driving a ton and have gotten my in town and slight 45-55mph driving up to 48mpg over several hundred miles. The second I hit 65+ she is consistently dropping to and maintaining 37.5mpg.

I am attaching pics of the cvt fluid. The bottle on the left is from the first change (8k miles on it), the bottle on the right is the second which was about 350miles later. Spoke with the dealership again and they said they only drained and refilled once. I am still planning to do the third change since the improvement between these two changes was extremely minimal in both behavior and color.

Im having a hard time recreating the rev limiter like action at higher rpm on video since it has warmed up here. I rarely go over 2500rpm anyway so its a minimal bother to me.

I had cleaned the egr valve and egr ports when I got it and they were dirty but not clogged or anything. I will look into intake cleaning next.

She will be making the 2000mile round trip to Tampa April 3rd so that should really test her. I plan to have the fluid changed one more time before that. Have been calling around to get quotes for a valve adjustment because I just do not have the time to mess with it right now and they have all been too high in my opinion ($250+) so eventually I am going to have to make time to tackle that. If anyone has a tutorial on that or a section of the manual that would be great.

Other than my insurance company giving me a "hybrid discount" this car has not been a joy to own... I see so many of you that seem to love these and I'm not seeing it yet but I am trying to remain optimistic. (although I am being pulled back to my tdi side again)

 

I am so jealous of the lift!

Anyway, I find it hard to properly assess the color of the fluid when looking through that much mass. I prefer to compare through a much thinner section. Empty the bottle to 1/4" thickness and then look through the hole down to the bottom to try and see some contrast.

Since our last interaction, I started paying attention to my wife's car - the one with the higher mileage. It performs very similarly in most cases; however, when on the freeway at 65mph, it definitely seems to rev higher for a given load. Additionally, after pulling off the freeway, it revs higher when accelerating from a stop. I do struggle to squeeze out the same performance as my car, but I believe this was a function of mileage more than anything. I'm on an accelerated CVT fluid replacement schedule too with a CVT change with EVERY oil change.

I would agree yet another change is in order. You would be coming up on your 3rd change at 90K by the maintenance minder.

I am sorry to hear of your frustration. I hope you experience improved mileage with the next CVT change and warmer weather to the point that you start liking the car.

Upstream O2 sensors can adversely affect economy, but you'll likely throw a P02A0 code when that happens. The upstream O2 sensor is very expensive.

I don't have the service manual or a tutorial, but I do believe a search here on GH will yield some decent threads.

 

With the lowest quote I have gotten for valve adjustment being $210, I think I am going to attempt it myself...

I used a smaller amount of fluid from each change to see color and the second change is just ever so slightly lighter in color. VERY SLIGHT though

The maintenance minder came on asking me to do the cvt change at 79k when I did the first change along with tire rotation and oil change. So im guessing it wont ask for it at 90k again? The car typically is every 30k correct? Not sure why this change was so early.

I would almost expect the cvt to perfrom differently maybe "looser" for lack of better terms on a car with over 200k on the original cvt. Just never thought my 80k mile cvt would have higher mileage issues.

The lift makes things so much easier... dad has a 40x60 shop with a drive on and post lift so just about anything can be done at home with enough time and patience...lol

 

I think 30K is right.

That's my thinking... more miles = "looser". I wouldn't expect yours to be that way either.

I can only envy your lift!

 

UPDATES!!

1. Changed the cvt fluid for a third time before my Tampa trip and it was much lighter in color, almost like a strongly brewed tea. So there is hope. Also she made it 2500 miles to Tampa and back without crapping out on me.
2. Fuel economy according to the cars trip B with 2500miles on it is 40.1 after driving there and back. I am still sorting through all of the receipts and will post each tanks average and driving conditions. But this is just a glimpse.
3. Over these 2500 miles I experienced 8 battery recalibrations... I do not feel real great about this but oh well... It never did it during highway driving always in 45mph stop and go areas, no a/c use, and seemed to do the recal with 4-5 soc everytime. We would know it was coming because autostop would stop working and it would stop assisting more than 2bars, and didnt want to charge while braking. Within 2min of this behavior she was dropping to 1 soc and force charging. It seemed on several of these it would do this after an extended autostop experience of 5minutes or more.

Look forward to a detailed fuel economy saga soon. Just wanted to share a few updates while I am getting sorted on everything else.

 

Nice thread. the same question as OP

 

1. Sounds good. Does the CVT feel like it's working better?
2. Not bad, but I would have expected higher unless you're talking 65mph or higher typical speeds. Once you hit 65+, it's hard to get into lean burn. My cars have a sweet spot around 60-62mph. I would be curious to see the per tank results.
3. You should not feel great about this. Your battery is underperforming. 8 recals in 2500 miles isn't much UNLESS much of those miles were highway cruise - which is where I see you. IIRC, you should have 9yr, 92K mile warranty on the pack. I think you're still in. No matter how shitty it performs or how many recals you get, Honda won't replace it until you get an IMA light. Keep an eye on it. The moment you get an IMA light, drive straight to the dealership and DON'T disconnect your 12V for any reason.

I suspect that your previously reported poor mileage may have been due in part to recals you didn't notice (or did notice).

You can expect 1-2 years of extended battery life if you start grid charging and discharging your battery periodically. You can build your own for less than $100.