The collision mitigation braking system consistently detects objects in the road and forcibly brakes when the road ahead of me is completely empty. This has happened 4 or 5 times just in the last year. The first time it happened I was driving on a completely empty road when the CMBS activated and kept slamming on the brakes until I pulled over and restarted the entire car. I don't always have to restart the car every time, but if it ever happens on a busy road it will cause an accident. The dealership refuses to inspect the system or try to recreate the problem despite the fact that there was a class-action suit against Honda for this exact CMBS malfunction in several other models. They just tell me to manually turn it off every time I get in the car. I am human and sometimes I forget, so this is not a solution. I'm afraid that this buggy "safety" system is going to get me and my child killed one of these days. I am happy to have the system inspected, but it doesn't keep a log of every time it activates so there's no real way to verify the false positives, and it happens randomly so it's very hard to recreate.
2020 Honda Civic: false forward collision warnings
5 of the 238 complaints about the 2020 Honda Civic describe false forward collision warnings.
- owner complaints
- 5
- of this car's complaints
- 2%
- recalls
- 0
False forward collision warnings by model year
What owners say
The body control module is failing, read multiple posts online and Honda is not fixing it. My alarm goes off and I cannot turn it off, have to use my key. The vehicle powers up on its own into accessory mode when parked, vehicle off and no key fob in the car. This causes the alarm to activate, drains the battery and causes temporary safety features- collision warning, lane assist, cruise control etc to not work. As well as drains the battery. Honda has recalled this part on other models but not the 10th generation Civic.
On multiple occasions, the collision mitigation braking system has had false-positive detections. There is one section of road where this occurs extremely frequently (maybe 20% of the time I drive through). On this section of road, it will not activate the brakes, it only beeps and displays "BRAKE" on the instrument cluster, but is extremely disconcerting and distracting. On another occasion on a different road, there was clear road ahead of me when the collision mitigation braking system had a false detection, and did activate the brakes and was incredibly close to causing a collision with a car driving behind me. On this same stretch of road, Ive had this occur two other times (out of hundreds I've driven on it), but no one was behind me and would not have caused an accident. In both of these spots, the road is fairly straight and the speed limit is 40 MPH. This hasn't been inspected by a dealer. This hasn't been inspected by Honda, the police, or insurance. There were no prior warnings to this issue occurring.
Warning light appeared on dashboard for obstructed radar sensor. Sensor was not obstructed. This was followed by additional warning lights that safety systems were malfunctioning, ACC, collision warning, automatic emergency braking systems are offline. Reported to local dealer.
When using the collision mitigation system it will falsely detects shadows from bridges or trees as objects/vehicles in the road and slams on the breaks. Additional the lane departure will try to veer off the road at every exit if I am in the right hand lane. Both things happen while driving on city streets and the freeway. This has multiple times to the point where we have turned off the collision mitigation and lane departure. The last time it happened was today, 9/19/2020
Service bulletins that may apply
Related recalls
No recalls on record for this model year.
Questions about the 2020 Honda Civic collision warning
Is false forward collision warnings a common problem on the 2020 Honda Civic?
5 of 238 owner complaints about the 2020 Honda Civic (2%) mention false forward collision warnings. The model year with the most reports is 2022.
Is there a recall or service bulletin for this on the 2020 Honda Civic?
There are 0 recalls and 12 service bulletins for the same area of the car. Check them below with your VIN.
Other symptoms on the 2020 Honda Civic
Fuel pump 18Slipping 9Stalling 7Jerking 6Lane assist 6Loss of power 6Airbag light 5Key fob 5
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