Don't take this the wrong way, because it's a good observation but your wasting your time!
Your talking about a 1MPH oscillation in the cruise control, I doubt that anyone would notice that if it was not for the digital readout and possibly the slight sound changes. Personally I almost never use cruise control or any other kind of driving assist. I like things to always be under my control so that i am always in reactive mode when driving. Of course what I prefer does not matter, the fact is that what you have noticed is not going to be noticed by many other people and certainly not enough people that Honda would change anything.

Rob

 

I see your viewpoint. But I notice the variation even when the number stays the same. I've had a Audi Q5 with display and a BMW motorcycle with digital display and neither varied like this. Also my Civic with the same drive train doesn't do this.

Keep in mind the RPM's actually surge. My Nissan Altima with CVT didn't do this. Our Audi Q5 had a MPG reading so you could see throttle position change and it didn't do this.


I also notice that with CC off, it's difficult to hold a constant speed, I think for the same reason. It changes to a tall ratio that has has too little power at the maximum throttle position it allows, and then drops the ratio. You then need ot reduce throttle position to hold the same power output.... the cycle continues. Does that make sense?

SO you have to understand that just like the engine computer manages fuel to air ratios, the transmission operates the same way. I has certain ranges for throttle position based on RPM and vehicle speed and decides what ratio to use. There are delay timers in there so it's not constantly changing ratio (rubber band, or motorboat feel). Realize that to hold a given speed, you need a certain power output. Then realize that power output changes with both RPM and throttle position. SO at 2000RPM you might make lets say 60HP at 28% throttle. To get 60HP at 2500RPM you might only need 22% throttle. But the transmission logic says that it will downshift at 27%, but once you reach 2500RPM the logic now says it need to upshift back to 2000RPM because it's under 23%. The logic had a time delay to prevent hunting, so there's a lag that makes the issue worse because it inhibits proper modulation.

I'm sure I lost some people. I'm probably not describing it well. If you've worked with programmable industrial controllers, this all makes perfect sense. It's called loop tuning. The "hunting" is normally referred to as hysteresis. Your basic thermostat at home has some of this issue as well. The CRV has a poorly tuned loop. A couple small tweaks to the logic and I could fix it.

I wonder if as my tires wear and my effective gear ratio drops, if the issues gets better.

 

After digital speedos started being used people started complaining about stuff like this. Before digits no one noticed. Same on electrical meters as the numbers were trying to average so they flip back and forth.

I have driven this '17 for a year now doing many long highway trips where I used the cruise control a LOT. My take on it is that this cruise works pretty darn good overall. Also, as for the CVT....I dislike driving cars that are thumping shifting gears all the time. Once we got our 2015 Fit and got adapted to how to drive it right to maximize efficiency and smoothness my non-mechanical wife and I both found our gear shifting 2012 CR-V to seem "jerky" as it thumped from gear to gear. Out CVT's are just so smooth.
Change is hard for some people, maybe even most people. I often have to tell my wife to just put up with stuff for a time and sure enough a few weeks later she loved the new thing and finds the old things "dated" and inferior.
The OP seems to not like his cruise control. That is a personal feeling and nothing anyone says will change his mind. No car ever built has ever 100% pleased 100% of its owners. Personally I have found the cruise in my new Touring to be the best cruise ever. I love that it doesn't have to lug down the engine and then suddenly jerk and downshift into a lower gear and rev the engine up like some older cars with shifting gears would do.

So, many will find no issues with the new CC. Some will even think its one of the best they ever had. Its certainly worlds better than what my old Toyota had and better than my old Nissan Xterra. But then they were hampered my those outdated five speed automatic transmissions that couldn't smoothly transition speeds like a good CVT can.

 

Welcome to the joys of people complaining and wanting CVT transmissions and digital speedometers.

Everyone wants the smoothness, but then gets frustrated at the annoying little differences and especially so when they cant get 200k out of a CVT transmission. And digital speedometers have to move back and forth. If it wasnt for that vs the standard needle, you would never notice.

Literally the only CVTs that last past 100k are ones that spend 99% of their time on the highway.

Bump the cruise 1mph, I have seen every vehicle get a little weird at a specific MPH set on the cruise. 1-2 mph bump on the cruise and its fine. But youll still have to deal with the dash fluctuating possibly.

Cruise control is a simple operation, simply sets throttle where you designate.

Personally I will NEVER own a CVT vehicle if I can avoid it. Pour performance and longevity. Though I would still be driving manual transmissions if my wife wasnt insufferable in that regard.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

Literally the only CVTs that last past 100k are ones that spend 99% of their time on the highway.

Hmmm. I traded in my 08' CR-V with over 100k and zero AT problems and it was used 80/20 city/highway...

 

Regarding the cruise control surging....are the folks who are experiencing this surging cruse control using the ECON button? This will slow the throttle response to where the surge may be more evident. Just a thought.

 

Before committing to giving up my 2012 CR_V which had been my favorite car ever I spent time reading about Accords with CTV's. In my profession I had followed CVT development and was well aware of some of the early issues Nissan had with their JATCO unit. NIssan worked out their mistakes and have a good transmission now. Honda held back on CVT's going mainstream on their larger cars even if they had been building them for their domestic market for some decades. CVT's have been around for decades in small cars in Europe and their history goes way back.

"Leonardo da Vinci, in 1490, conceptualized a stepless continuously variable transmission. Milton Reeves invented a variable-speed transmission for saw milling in 1879, which he applied to his first car in 1896. The first patent for a friction-based belt CVT for a car was filed in Europe by Daimler and Benz in 1886, and a US patent for a toroidal CVT was granted in 1935."

If I recall Honda's first mass produced CVT was on a JDM small car around 1996. The Accord started using them in around 2013. Before getting my new CR-V with CVT I looked at owner experiences with the Accord. While there are always small number of problems with ever car ever built and these are the people who shout and yell and complain loudly (we understand that) the vast majority that never have a problem don't complain so you do not hear from them. I did read quite a bit about people having Accord CVT's with over 200,000 trouble free miles on them. They did express that they did the required oil changes and how important it was to do so. We have run our Fit CVT for close to three years now and love its trouble free, smooth driving CVT. So I had no reservation about getting the new CR-V with a CVT. My brother got one in 2016 and has been 100% satisfied with it.

I will add that if you are concerned about automotive transmissions you should read about some of the many issues people with the new eight speed automatics are having. They are a very complex transmission and their computer controls are constantly shifting gears, skipping some gears, searching for just the right gear, etc. Engineers are constantly trying every trick to squeeze more MPG and lower emissions from their vehicles. After all, they have to as to sell vehicles you have to meet increasingly stringent standards here and in Europe. And as for manual transmissions...I put a lot of clutches in those things. Same for clutch cables, hydraulic cylinders, pilot bearings, synchronizers and other bushings and parts. No transmission ever made is 100% trouble free.

CVT's will not appeal to everyone even if they give better mileage, better performance and last 200,000 miles. Some people hate automatic transmissions. Some hate air bags, ABS, you name it. We are all different and we are fortunate that the market place gives us so many choices. I have made my living with automotive technical work my entire life (well...first paying job wasn't until 1964). I feel comfortable with making car choices. I have no worries about the CVT's in my two Honda's. I have long since adapted to driving them in a fashion to get the most performance and economy out of them and both my wife and I enjoy them. And, if they break, that is a chance you take on any car made. Our old automatic Accord (now with the kids) is still running on its original automatic transmission after almost twenty years and well over 200,000 miles. Of the 35 Honda's that have been bought in our families no one has ever had a transmission failure. Heck, one niece is now nearing 40 and is still driving the Civic (automatic) that she got as a graduation present.

If you are unhappy with a CVT then certainly you should probably not buy a car that uses one. Road and Track once had a nice article that clearly stated the the CVT transmission ...well, read the article and see.

"Proponents of the automated manual, particularly proponents of the mandatory auto-manual as found in the Porsche GT3 and the Ferrari F12, like to remind us that "it's the Formula One transmission" and "stick shifts are slower around a track." True on both counts, but it's only the Formula One transmission because the CVT was banned from Formula One. It's the tame housecat to the CVT's mountain lion, if you will, and it's primarily chosen by people who are afraid of stalling their Porsche in traffic. "

Read the article here, its quite interesting...and F1 banned the CVT because it gave the car using it too much of an advantage and took the human element out:
http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cul...ure/a27823/a-dual-clutch-gearbox-is-an-automatic-and-it-isnt-even-the-best-one/

 

Check to see if your CR-V is within the VIN range for TSB 17-064; speed fluctuations during ACC operation is one of the symptoms. See the TSB sticky at the top of this forum. That said, some speed fluctuation is normal, and noticing it is a side effect of having a precise speedometer.

 

Hans is right IMO.
It’s all a question of getting use to something. I remember the days when I hated Automatics but as the decades have passed I realized that it has grown into a superior technology, so I finally gave in. Now I just cannot see my self going back to a standard for my daily commutes. I still love a manual for Sunday driving.

 

It isn't an engine oil change that keeps CVTs running but transaxle fluid changes.

Only automatic transmission I ever had that failed was a Honda/Accura product. Subject to recall. inspected promptly at 20k miles and dealer said it didn't need the recall (in writing). Failed completely at less than 70k miles.

The PDK Porsche auto manual transmission is often chosen by people who find the drive less stressful if they aren't on and off the clutch all the time due to traffic density and the commute they have to make. I owned 2 auto trans Porsche sports cars for precisely that reason as my city had grown by 5 times the density and the roads hadn't. (prior to that 3 manual sports cars too.) My commute went from 8 minutes at 70MPH to 50 minutes at a crawl. I borrowed my wife's slushomatic one day and noticed how much more relaxed I was when I got home.

 

I work in a Auto shop that specializes in transmissions. Obviously we dont see anything THAT new yet.

But anything older especially Nissan and Ford (the few models they tried to put them in) are prone to failures.

The transmissions we deal with the most, chevy and ford/mazda, old up to just out of warranty new. Newest so far was 61k miles. Chrysler larger vehicles in third. Toyota never, Mitsubishi is almost non-existant around here. In 15 years, 2 honda transmissions. Second one is sitting at the shop right now, 04 Accord V6 that wasnt well cared for.

Nissans we won't even rebuild, its buy a replacement.

5 yrs is WAY too early to tell reliability yet. Granted its Honda but no company has gotten it right yet. Once its proven reliable tech Ill believe its worth while. 5 yrs is far from enough time to judge.



Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

 

Don’t you think that if “literally the only CVTs that make it past 100k are those that spend 99% of their time on the highway” you might have seen more than zero Honda CVTs by this point?

 

I've owned five Honda's previous to my 2017 CRV, all Civics from 2006 to 2015 (except for a 2010 Accord). The 2015 Civic was a CVT vehicle, and all Civics had a digital dash. None of my Civics, Accord, or even my Ford trucks display the abysmal behavior that this CRV does in regards to cruise. Now, don't get my wrong, this vehicle is the nicest Honda I've owned, and I enjoy pretty much everything about it, except for the cruise.

My 2017 EXL is outside the range of serial numbers that TSB 17-064 describes, so the my dealer didn't apply the "fix".

It's more than just not maintaining speed that is the issue, my Civics would do this from time to time when in Econ mode, rather, it's the surge and overshoot and subsequent drop back that is the issue. I think with the low RPM torque available with this engine, it's much more noticeable that on other vehicles.

I've also noticed a few ways to mitigate the issue, or when the issue is better.

1. Higher speeds. At interstate speeds, say 75 MPH, I don't noticed the issue as much. It's much more prevalent, and maddening at 60 MPH.

2. KM/H - try switching the gauge cluster over to KM/H, I notice that this issue stabilizes. I do see a +/- 1 KPH deviation, but without the accompanying surge. Switching back to MPH while cruise is engaged, will cause the issue to reappear.

3. Sometimes when the issue is happening, if I bump up/down my speed the issue will stop. Until, that is, I have to interrupt and then resume speed.

4. If I disabled ACC and effectively engage "regular" cruise control, the issue is still present.

5. If I am using ACC and am following a slower a vehicle, the issues does NOT occur, the cruise works as it should.

6. In econ mode the issue is still there, just not quite as noticeable.

Long story short, in my opinion this is a programming issue that Honda needs to address. I'll keep complaining to the dealer, maybe something will come of it.

 

I agree with you. It's amazing how poor it was implemented. It might be exacerbated by the systemic wonkiness with the new CRV 1.5L turbo/CVT throttle control. But there's something seriously awry within the cruise control logic too. It doesn't happen all the time but when it does the throttle/speed oscillations prove to be an embarrassment. I feel it most often on downhill stretches and when the roadway undulates with rolling sections. It's more like +-3mph change every 5 or so secs. It's not subtle or optimal, it's a hack. Honda needed to do a better job but likely ran out of time.

Admittedly, this stuff happens all the time with new product roll outs. It's just another example of auto manufacturers accepting known issues and using the old school 'just ship it baby.'

Hopefully the new software fix addresses it.

 

This happens on every car manufacturer lol
You get a +1 o +2 on hills once you go over due to gravity.

 

By your comment, you haven't experienced or noticed it then. Once again, it isn't a one-sided overshoot. It's bilateral and the overshoot changes, like a manic depressant except it's every 5 or so seconds. Spelled out, ~+3 to -3mph every 5 secs. It isn't normal, it isn't pleasant, it has never happened in any other vehicle I've owned, and it's like a punch in the gut. It's a Honda bug. No manufacturer would consider it normal or acceptable.

 

That's never happened for me (Touring). I get 1mph or maybe 2mph fluctuations, but they tend to be more gradual than what you are experiencing.

 

Brand new owner of an '18 here, and, I was on cruise for the first time this weekend, and, had the variation in speed described in this thread. I hope that some Honda coding can be modified to correct the issue, not real pleased with the performance, but, I need to get more miles and experience. For sure, the 2 cars that we have been driving for years were rock solid at holding the speed settings.

 

The owners manual states that while coasting downhill cruise control may fluctuate. The 1mph difference issue on a flat road was fixed with a TSB. I posted a lot about it. Don’t let anyone “welcome you to the world of CVts and digital speedos” and get that update done.

 

this is what is happening to me all the time, it hunts going up hill and it runs way past the set speed going down hill and slams the throttle wide open then backs off. this the worst ACC. I ever experienced. Flat landers have no idea how bad it is, it is a POS. in Pa....... Jim

 

this is what is happening to me all the time, it hunts going up hill and it runs way past the set speed going down hill and slams the throttle wide open then backs off. this the worst ACC. I ever experienced. ...... Jim

Unfortunately this is what I experience in Colorado Springs also. More so on non-interstates roads, but def noticeably surges on hilly roads in the 34-45+ speed range. So far, on the interstates is has been ok after the TSB was installed. I don't use it anymore on these type of roads. I think they need to try and refine the SW again for these road/speed conditions.

 

Just came back from a short trip and the ACC. was set at 55 and at the bottom of the hill it was going 59 and it accelerated wide open then dropped back. But there is nothing wrong .... yea right...jim

 

I have experienced the acceleration/deceleration cycling while descending steep inclines on interstates with ACC on. In other forums it was suggested to use the S mode when it cycles like to smooth out the surges, however that was prior to TSB 17-064 being issued that is also supposed to improve the ACC accuracy and decrease the tendency to surge on steep inclines with the ACC on. I have not had the 17-064 update performed yet but will when I have my first oil change later this month.

 

Sounds to me like the transmission is downshifting in order to engine brake. I mean, if it's going 59 with a 55 setpoint, you are going downhill, and the engine then "surges", unless the speed reacts like you just stepped on the gas, that sounds like a way to prevent further acceleration without riding the brakes.

On another note, could somebody post a YouTube video of this behavior? I think that might answer a lot of questions.

 

It was going faster than that but died down to that speed when the throttle went wide open then lets off and gets more normal, 4 mph. over the set speed. If it does not go over the set speed by 2 mph. it is a lot better....... Jim

 

I have 7000+ miles on my CRV. The ACC has been outstanding so far. It is accurate and smooth. On down hills it will shift down with the corresponding RPM increase. On level off it will hold the selected speed with some minor over/under shoot, but quickly settles down again. However, nothing is perfect. Recently with ACC on, I experienced a RPM flucation of 3-400rpm. I Disconnected the ACC and reconnected. The problem went away and never came back yet. I experienced the same problem on a 2000 Ford F350 diesel. It was the speed sensor. I changed it out and problem solved. I know, different technology, but the point is that it could be that simple. Further checking required

 

See if your vehicle's VIN falls under this TSB
http://techinfo.honda.com/Rjanisis/pubs/SB/AH/A17-064/enu/A17-064.PDF

 

It does. I will be chatting (nice word) with Honda soon.

 

I'm having the TSB 17-064 software update on mine next Friday.

 

I just started experiencing this issue, occasionally, recently. My CRV, AWD, EX is a 2017, with 10,000 miles on it, purchased June 2017, and, possibly, manufactured April 2017.
Issue is not the +/- 1 mph variation, but the +/- 400-500 rpm variation under a fairly stable load while on ACC.
It seems that my VIN falls into the TSB17-064. Looking to have in done at next servicing. Didn't have it done at first servicing, because I wasn't having the problem.
This can't be good for mileage.