Civic - Honda :: 1998 - Engine Suddenly Dies
Apr 24, 2013
I am at my wits' end with my 98 Honda Civic LX. The problem starts around late summer of last year. It is sporadic, so I didn't quite pay attention until one day the engine died on the highway after I picked up the kids at the school. It didn't make any sound nor giving any warnings, just suddenly died. After that highway episode, it seems like it just taken its own fancy schedule as far as when to die, so to say. In a given day, it could 4 episodes in a day. Then it runs perfectly for some weeks then it starts again and went away again.
It just quietly dies while being driven. I had to turn it completely off, wait for some moment and try to turn it on again. Sometimes it just turns on again without me being frustrated and there were moments when I had to do several attempts. Once I heard clicking sound before the engine died, only once, the rest makes no sound at all. No lights are on.
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This has been a great car, until it developed this weird thing. It will occasionally stall while being driven. no warning, the motor just dies. It is a manual trans. and sometimes will restart if I downshift. I have become adept at slamming on the hazard lights and pulling over.
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My 1989 Honda Civic engine randomly dies usually while driving. When it dies I hear a relay click sound coming from the area of the glove box. The tachometer and speedometer go immidiately to 0. The dashboard indicator lights all go out. The turn signals windshield wipers and electric windows all quit working, but the emergency flashers, radio, and comfort system blower continue to work. I think the transmission goes immediately into neutral too because deceleration is much slower than it would be if the engine were running and I take my foot off the accelerator. So far I have always been able to restart the engine and continue driving, though it often takes many tries before it will successfully restart and keep running.
In an unsuccessful restart the engine will fire and start to rev up but die again as soon as I release the key from the Start position. Occasionally the engine will spontaneously restart while we are coasting to a stop. We took it on a long trip this summer and it would almost always work fine until we stopped for gas, food or restroom break. After the break it would die one to three times in the first 5 miles and then would work fine until the next break. My mechanic says the computer is not storing any failure codes and he is having a hard time troubleshooting it because the problem only randomly occurs. I'm wondering if the problem might be a flaky electrical connector somewhere.
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I've got a 2004 Honda Civic with the 1.7L engine. I drive for about five miles and the engine stops suddenly but only for a half-second then runs again like normal. At the same time, there is a click - click behind my glove box. Relays I'm almost sure. And the way it happens is :click > engine stopsclick > engine continues running normally. Used to happen only on hot days, now it does when it's cool out once the engine is warmed up.
After it does this over and over about 6 times the Check Engine Light comes on and it doesn't jerk so hard, but stumbles kinda mildly, but all the time - though usually by this time I have gotten off the road and am swearing loudly.The Honda mechanics are running the clock RIGHT NOW and it may cost me a fortune - Also, there is no error code showing. Nothing. And I also replaced some relays, to no avail, because I read about cracked solder problems someplace...
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Noticed my beater Honda del Sol (177k miles) idling slowly the other day. Normal 45F day, light urban driving. Usually idle is ~800rpm (indicated), was dropping to 600rpm and even 500rpm. Holding her at 1000rpm then releasing the gas pedal yielded ~300rpm and it almost died, followed by ~500rpm. Ran fine at any other speed; it had no hesitation, no noises, and no warning lights.
So my GF said, "you're probably low on oil; my Cooper S did that once". Huh? Why would low oil, other than if it were so low that it starved the engine and caused friction, impact the idle? If anything, I'd think it would idle faster with less fluid to pump, and/or with hotter and hence thinner oil (assuming it'll run hotter if it has less oil, which it didn't appear to be).
Sure enough, I checked and it was about a quart low. I've never had a car that uses oil, plus my cars usually have oil pressure & oil level indicators (i.e. Porsche 944S2). So I've never run those lower than near the bottom of the "normal" range.
Searching "The Google" only provided unsatisfactory answers about metal-to-metal grinding and galling slowing down the engine, which is not what is happening here. There is still oil pressure, the oil light does not come on, and the engine sounds "normal". And adding oil immediately cured the slow idle.
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Right after I filled the gas tank, the car will start for a few seconds and shortly die afterwards. Could it possibly be the purge control solenoid? Right now I'm completely lost...
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My 2007 Honda Civic LX car horn suddenly stopped working after I had just used the horn a few minutes earlier. It does not work from the steering wheel and it does not work from the remote when I lock the car. The fuse seems to be OK (the horn seems to be on the same circuit as the brake lights and those are working).
I believe I can hear the relay under the dashboard clicking when I try to use the horn so I suspect that the horns are actually broken. But I was wondering how many horns the 2007 Honda Civic LX has? I have been told different things by different car mechanic/dealers. One said that it has only 1 horn and the other says it has two (one "high" and one "low"). What is correct?
If it has two horns I would be less inclined to think that both horns stopped working at the exact same time so it might just be a bad wiring or something What is reasonable to pay for repairing the horn at a mechanic?
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2004 civic ex with over 300,000 miles
For last 5 months or so, I have to keep full tank of gas. If the tank is half, the car starts stalling, and the first sign of it is when I am taking a sharp right turn on highway exit. It's like the engine dies for a second or two and comes back when the right turn is over. If I keep driving and the tanks get lower, it will happen even without the right turn. I just fill up the tank and the problem is fixed.
Check engine light is on sometimes (but not always) with these codes P0171B and P0497, but I am not sure it's related.
There is sometime also a short delay in starting the car, irrelevant if the tank is full, (a second or two of extra cranking) but that might be a different issue too.
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A friend has a 2005 Honda Civic with approximately 120,000 miles that she just bought the end of 2013. The car was kept immaculate by the previous owner. This week as she was driving, she said the temperature needle suddenly went all the way to H. Earlier in the day, she had noticed the A/C was not consistently cool but didn't think much of it as there were no other problems with the car. When the temp needle suddenly went to H, she shut off the a/c and before she could pull over the temp needle went back to normal. She checked the coolant level which was very low and she took it to the dealer who ran multiple tests including checking the thermostat, cylinder compression tests, etc but they could find nothing wrong. I keep telling her there is a reason it did that and that coolant doesn't just disappear and that I think she should take it back.
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it's a 2000 honda civic EX. I pulled into a parking spot and slowed down, then decided to speed back up and when I accelerated it was like the car was in neutral. No gear would drive. Turned off the engine and re started and it shifted and did fine then about a 1/4 mile down the road the same thing happened. It just switched into neutral. The transmission fluid is full and clean and the filter has been changed. There was no warning signs at all.
The only caveat I can think of is last week at 15 mph my front passenger wheel fell off after someone replaced a tire. I traveled less than 10 feet on the wheel. But didn't think the transmission would be low enough to hit the ground.
At first I thought transmission clutch but it would be doing it in one direction? Then I thought maybe a pump? Or could it be a sensor or the torque converter.
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In the Car Talk column on 1/3/2016, it sounds like Lynnette's 1991 Honda Civic wagon was experiencing very similar symptoms to my wife's 2001 Honda Odyssey (189,000 mi) a few months ago. Rough idle, engine almost dies sometimes at stops, groans during acceleration. Additionally, accelerating between 40-60 mph our Honda would feel like it was "loading up," running rich or in the wrong gear climbing hills. I replaced the idle air control valve, which fixed the rough idle but not the other symptoms. Turned out I needed to reset (power cycle) the ECM and go through a curb idle/rev warm-up procedure so it would relearn the throttle position sensor's operating range after replacing the IAC valve. I disconnected the battery, removed and reinserted the hazard fuse, then reconnected the battery. Then from a cold start held the throttle at 3000 rpm until the engine warmed up to normal or the electric fans kicked on. Since then it's back to smooth, strong acceleration we expect from the Honda we love.
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My 1998 Honda Civic has been dormant in my drive way for about a month and a half with very little gas. I went out to try to start it the other day and it struggled for a bit and never turned over. It isn't the batter considering the headlights and radio work just fine, thus I sought out the nearby gas station and attempted to solve the problem by putting gas in it, yet when I returned and emptied out my gas can into the tank it was the same ol' story. What it could be?
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I have a 1998 honda civic LX that slips very very seldom upon acceleration. It happens under light acceleration and medium acceleration (I dont accelerate hard enough to see it slip at high acceleration, it might!)
What happens is, the car stops accelerating and simply idles. As the motor idles the car drifts and slows down. I have never done it, but I bet in this state I could come to a complete stop just by drifting if I keep my foot in the same spot on the accelerator. When I change my foot, and accelerate harder, the car wakes back up and keeps accelerating like nothing even happened.
I don't think it is the transmission slipping, because in that instance revs would climb and acceleration would halt and that is not the case. I recently gave the car a huge tune up, here's the list
Valve adjustment
Oil and filter change
Cleaned throttle body and IAC
New distributor and cap (Plug wires aren't really in good shape)
New spark plugs
New air filter
Set the timing
New belts
Cleaned injectors
Cleaned battery terminals
I don't know what could cause this problem! The only thing I have come up is the Possibility a TPS (Throttle position sensor) going bad. The only thing that I know of that is wrong with the car is the exhaust manifold has a big crack in it right before the upstream 02 sensor. No doubt this leak is messing with the cars readings of the AFRs. Could this be part of the problem? It is throwing a code for the catalyst system.
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I have 1998 Honda civic 2 Dr and i was trying to switch cd players in it and blew some fuses so i checked all and replaced the blown ones but now it won't start.
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I've been checking my oil every morning for a few weeks now because of a worry about it burning off. I check it at the same time each morning, in pretty much the same parking spot, before driving it. Every time I take out the dipstick, wipe it off and put it back in to check. What's weird is that the level seems to fluctuate. Some days it's up over the higher dot. Some days it's down closer to the lower one (though it hasn't been under). Most days it's somewhere closer to the middle between the two. Is it common for it to fluctuate that much on a day to day basis? Is it something I should be worrying about?
In case it matters, it's a 1998 Honda Civic LX.
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I have an issue with my 98 honda civic lx, with 197000 mils. Recently I had my Check engine light on. I ignored it for a day. The next day started my car and in the middle of the road it stopped moving, meaning in spite of accelerating it doesn't move. So I stopped at the shoulder, turned off the engine. After a while I started again, the car moved but later on it stopped moving when I was accelerating. The Engine did not turn off during the stall. Couple of weeks back the car was shaking on the front side when I was driving, it felt like the car was about to stop as if it was short of fuel.I changed the spark plug 15000 miles back. Water pump and timing belt was changed 25000 miles back.Car has a highway mileage of 32 mpg.
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My 1998 Honda Civic has oil in the radiator. And even stranger, the oil winds up in the overflow coolant reservoir. What is the most likely cause of this?
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My car drives fine till it heats up then if I come to a stop it won't go into gear.....
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My 98 Civic ex runs and shifts perfect to have 200,000+ miles but when you try and shift to reverse it grinds. It acts like it's gonna shift into reverse but doesn't. When you shift back into park or neutral you can hear it still spinning. Sounds like a card in spoke of bike. We have drained fluid twice and replaced also added trans-x.
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I've got a 1988 Honda Civic Sedan. 151, 000 miles. Runs great,except when I have to stop for gas or I pop the clutch maladroitly to get going and kill the engine. Then it won't start up. It used to do it once or so every five times I stop to gas up. I don't drive it much and have to re-charge the battery every month or so--even the new battery. It started this herky-jerky thing last summer but the tow guy convinced me it was a bad gas problem. A gas additive seemed to clear it up, but not the starting problem.
Just last night I recharged the battery,let the engine run 15 minutes or so the next morning, then shut it down and tried to restart it; turned over but wouldn't start. In general, when it cools down about an hour or so later, it starts fine. So engine heat seems to cause it.I've giving up trying to gas up at the cheap stations. Instead I go to the local station two blocks away so I can push it aside and come back later to get it if it stalls. Could this be something simple I could fix?
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I have a '98 Honda Civic that is regularly maintained and seems fine with the exception of a starting problem when left outside. I have it in a garage normally and have never had a problem starting it. But when left outside, it usually takes a couple of hours for the car to warm to the outside temperture as it rises. The battery is new and the spark plugs seem fine so I am at a loss.
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