2001 Honda Civic ex

Hi, as you may have expected, I have a 2001 honda civic ex. Just got it 5 days ago, private sale. The car ran fine for about 150 miles. Then yesterday it hogged up a little in first and second gear, but then ran fine for 25+miles. I was almost home when it almost stalled in 5th gear and the check engine light came on (cel). I pulled over, checked everything (I had just switched over to synthetic oil that day - mobile one 5-20) all the fluids were fine, temperature was fine. I started back up and drove another 2 miles, when it lost all power and would barely maintain 40mph in 4th gear. I pulled again for a few minutes. I then drove it home and it ran fine for the final 6 or 7 miles.

I put injector cleaner that removes water. And changed the air filter. THen this morning I wanted to go for a drive to make sure it was fixed. It ran beautiful for 15 miles, then in 5th gear at 55mph, stalled and the cel came on. I pulled over, and started it back up, it was in limp mode. And would not come out of limp mode. Got it back home at 20mph and after it rested for an hour and cooled down, it was out of limp mode, and ran fine again. The code it is throwing is P1362 which is the TDC code, or camshaft position sensor. Is this sensor most likely the real cause, or could it be something else? Any ideas and opinions are welcome.

Boilermaker1

Its a known problem and a pain in the *** to change.
If that sensor goes, the computer doesnt know where the cam is relative to the crank, so it shuts down to prevent itself from ripping itself apart. Its under the timing cover and under the cam gear on the driver's side of the motor. There's a fair bit of disassembly needed to get it out (the whole timing set), so if the car is anywhere close to 90,000 miles, just do the entire timing belt/water pump job. Its probably also wise while you're in there to change the crank position sensor on the side of the oil pump... that one's also going to eventually crap out.

MStanciu

I had the same problem but my 2001 civic got stock i first gear and would not go faster then 20mph, the next day i drove it and it was fine but my check engen light was steel on, so I did some resarch and found out the the TDC sensor (top ded center sensor) was bad and i change it and it is ok now no more codes coming up.

aramlk

I also had the same problem. And my car got stall ine middle of the road Then I pulled over and waited. After some time it got started. But Engine check light didn' t go. Some how I managed to reach to my destination. Afterwords I went to honda agents and they replaced the TDC sensor. They also recommends to replace crank sensor as well. 'cos it' ll gives the same results in near future.


Modified by aramlk at 9:45 AM 8/6/2008

sibbyjaydee

Our 2002 Civic was doing the exact same thing. We have 140k on it. The diagnostics kept coming up with the TDC sensor, so we replaced it. The car worked fine for about 50 miles and then started do that fading out thing. We took it to the dealership and they said that we needed to replace the catylitic converter, and wanted to charge us 1800 bucks. Well we've had plenty of catylitic converters replaced in our life time for under 200 bucks, so we took it somewhere else to have it replaced. Car continued to do the limp thing usually when in 5th gear for a prolonged amount of time. (check engine light came back on) soo we took it to a different honda machanic. It was indeed the catylitic converter, but un-known to us, honda vehicles only want honda parts....and yes, they had to put a honda catylitic converter on (1200 bucks), but they also had to replace the pipe that the other shop had cut to fit the non-honda converter. (another 200 bucks). so in the end we spent 1600 bucks to replace the converter....200 for 1st non-handa converter...1200 for new HONDA converter...200 for pipe. Car runs great now, and I'm sure it will last another 140k miles. HAVE YOUR CATYLICTIC CONVERTER checked out.