Malfunction light on, car won't go over 5 mph

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toebridge
Posts: 5
Joined: Tue Jul 08, 2014 1:39 am

18,000 miles on a 2010 Kizashi SE with CVT. Malfunction light came on and the car won't go over 5 mph. (Goes faster in reverse) Got it towed home today from Buffalo NY to VA and ready to tow it to the dealer 85 miles away. Any thoughts? Thanks
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KuroNekko
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Location: California, USA

Sounds like it went into Limp Mode which is a mode that some cars will go into when there is a critical sensor or electronic component failure. It's basically so you can get the car to a safe place, but it will prevent you from driving the car to minimize damage.
My guess is that a sensor went bad. If not that, some other critical electrical component.
This should be covered under the powertrain warranty.
Please keep us posted on it. Thanks.
2011 Suzuki Kizashi Sport GTS 6MT (Black)
sx4rocious
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Joined: Mon Jul 22, 2013 8:31 pm

I always thought limp mode locked it on 3rd gear or something. I would think it would do better than 5mph. That alone can be extrememly dangerous depending on where it happened!
murcod
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I'm guessing you don't have access to an OBDII scanner? It would be interesting to see what codes are logged.

Good luck and keep the updates coming. :)
David
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Woodie
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toebridge wrote:Got it towed home today from Buffalo NY to VA and ready to tow it to the dealer 85 miles away. Any thoughts?
Yes, my thought is ouch.
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LPSISRL
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Yup, agree that it's either a sensor or something major went wrong with the tranny. What kind of revs were you getting while going only 5 mph? Since there's no "gear" to lock into in a CVT, I'm not sure how the limp mode works. I imagine the pulleys simply both lock in a particular position. I think if the hydraulics failed that squeezes the pulley on the power side (engine) it would have the belt riding very low on the pulley giving a very high ratio and hence not much speed. That's just a guess though. I would think that even in that situation you'd be able to get more than 5 mph out of it.
Tim
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toebridge
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Joined: Tue Jul 08, 2014 1:39 am

Got it to the dealer - Transmission is shot - under warranty- time to get rid of it -
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KuroNekko
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toebridge wrote:Got it to the dealer - Transmission is shot - under warranty- time to get rid of it -
So you plan to get the transmission replaced under warranty and then sell the car once that's done?
2011 Suzuki Kizashi Sport GTS 6MT (Black)
bootymac
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Yet another CVT failure...
krell
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Location: New York

Wheels peeling, cvt failure and lousy gas mileage what the hell did i get into when i only got a few months to retire.
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