george4

I just started my car today and the engine would not turn on. Everything else in the car turns on (lights, windows, radio) so I'm ruling out the battery. I hear no sounds coming from the engine or any sort of clicking. First I left it for like 30 minutes, the car started and shut off within a few seconds. I left the car again and came back a couple hours and it started up! Obviously I do not want my car to flake out when I'm somewhere besides home, so I need to get this fixed ASAP. ALSO in a possible related issue, a few weeks ago I couldn't take my car out of park, I had narrowed the problem down to most probably being the break light switch because the car would run fine when I manually (key shift lock) put it into gear, also the break lights didn't turn on (finally the fuse for the break light seemed fine too). I'm not sure what can prevent the engine from starting? I hope its not something serious and something hopefully I can fix. I am going to the Honda dealership tomorrow to run a diagnostics test at least. One last note is that when I first bought the car a few months ago I went to Honda to get all the repairs it needed so I don't know how they missed a big problem like this - or maybe the caused it? (because I didnt have this problem before I went to Honda).

george4

> Update
Basically Honda dealership told me if the car is running then it is pretty hard for them to replicate the problem if it happens randomly. After going home from that I tried a few things...

I've been trying to make the engine stall and I got it to stall a few times randomly while in park. The car starts up pretty normally 95%+ of the time. However I got it to turn on then turn off 3 times. Heres what I did:

I had just finish driving for about <30 mins and parked. After a few turn ons and offs I tried to race the engine while in park. I got it to about 3-5k RPM and immediately let go of the accelerator. The engine slows down but goes to far (as if it overshoots) and the car engine shuts off.

I wait a few seconds and try it again. Starts up fine.

After a few restarts (along with engine stressing) the engine turns off almost immediately after turning on. However this time the engine rattles / struggles first before shutting off (hint of something?).

I try a few more times and I can't get the car to shut itself off. I leave and come back ~6 hours later.

I push the engine while in park to about 5k again and let it drop immediately again. No shut offs however I notice the car idles at about 1.5k RPM rather than <1k RPM like earlier in the the day. I don't know if this is because the engine is cold and it has to idle higher rpms to keep things going (voltage etc)? Or maybe a sign of something wrong with the car's ability to idle itself?


A few other things I noticed when the car shuts itself off:
* Car's HUD lights get wonky
* Car is still able to shift into different gears
* Car's lights/radio/windows still work
* Break pedal becomes very stiff

ziggy!talon

main relay.

george4

What reasons makes you think its the main relay ? (Wanting to expand my limited knowledge )

tpot90

This sounds almost identical to my car! My car has a very weak start and will often die immediately after re-starting it on a warmed up engine. It will run roughly for about 5 seconds before dying.

Why would a main relay do this? And is this hard to replace?

Also, when we say main relay, are we talking about the main EFI relay?


Modified by tpot90 at 9:45 PM 2/24/2008

george4

Interesting tpot90,

Try to kill the engine like how I did while it was in park. Lucky, for me this hasn't happened ON the road itself.

As for the main relay location:
"98, 99, 00, and 01--Left of steering column."
(http://www.askmehelpdesk.com/cars-tr...tml#post518093)

george4

Some Side Notes:

I wonder if I can take this part out and resolder the joints (if solder joints are that problem).

Strange that heat can be a problem with the main relay because this first happened at night when I hadn't driven it for a day.

Testing the main relay:
http://autorepair.about.com/cs...c.htm

tpot90

Thanks for the info, George.
Does anyone else have an idea of why my engine shuts off when it is warm? does this sound like a Main Relay problem?

tpot90

?

ziggy!talon

yes, it's the main relay, trust me. get it changed ou, it's not hard to do yourself, and will only run about 50 bucks labor if u can get another main relay out of a junk yard card.

361 accord

hrm dude idk about a main realy but i think its cuz ur being a ricer and revving in park

if i do the same thing, rev real high then lef off the gas suddenly it will idle UBER low like 400 like its gonna die but doesnt

that probably doesnt help for **** but i'd wanna see what hondadude has to say before replacing random ****