ALDNC

Hey all, new here. I did a search first and I can't find a post related to mine.
I am having acceleration hesitation or shudder. Most noticeable when transitioning from the electric motor or mode, to the gas motor. BUT, I have experienced that brief (half a second) hesitation and a little accompanying shudder at higher speeds (60-80mph) when it wouldn't be transitioning.
I have had this car since 28K miles? and I am now at 70-80K. Been great, no real issues. I just noticed this starting to happen over the last few months. It hasn't increased dramatically, and to be honest people who aren't familiar with my car wouldn't probably notice, or would dismiss it. But it wasn't there before.
From reading other forums, I am dismissing motor mounts since it is not a consistent shudder. I am having some rear end noise (like the road noise is louder) my mechanic says he thinks the rear bearing is starting to go out, we are going to probably replace that soon. BUT I don't think the hesitation would be related to that.
I am going to test the battery (I have noticed my MPG declining a little bit with age, used to get closer to 34-37 mpg depending on conditions, now it is closer to 30-33 MPG)

I am just concerned that this is a sign of some other issue starting to rear it's head? No codes, nothing like that. Does anyone else have cars over 80k miles and notice different driving characteristics? Are their known acceleration issues that come on with age?

I forgot to say, I am also going to see about a tune up. I have tried running fuel cleaner before.
Also not a tranny issue, the issue is not related to a certain gear or anything that i can tell.
It happens only when accelerating.

Thanks for the insight and feedback!

EastTNLex

Suggest starting with the tune-up for the hesitation issue. For the road noise, how’s your tires?

zes

You cannot rule out motor mounts. The ICE in the hybrid starts and stops easily 10 times more than in a regular car. Starting and stopping is very hard on motor mounts. You should get them checked when you get a tuneup. I am not sure what they would do in a tuneup in this car. The plugs should be good to 150K miles at least. They can change the spark plug wires but OEMs will be very expensive. Maybe Avalon or Camry hybrid wires will be cheaper. One thing that can cause this type of issue is a dirty throttle body. I would get the throttle body cleaned up and get the mounts checked and skip the cost of the tuneup, myself.