twinkiedooter

I know...... everyone's car won't start and I have read online for days now trying to figure this problem out. Got the car 2 years ago. Had a coil failure after 2 months....car quit altogether and I was left at the side of the road. My friend mechanic diagnosed it as a bad coil after testing everything else. The distributor did have engine oil leakage in it from bad seals in the distributor. We redid the distributor with a new coil and new seals and fixed the problem and got car back up and running.

Now I bought another Civic....an 00 and I would leave my 98 in the driveway sitting for a few days at a time. I drove the 00 on some errands....came home and started the 98 to just start it up and run it a bit. It turned over after a small hesitation of a second or two. Fired up fine after that. Then I was ill and did not go out of the house for a few days. I wanted to take the 98 for errands. Got in....turned the key and all it did was kinda hum click sound but no start. I tried again and all it did nothing but click click click and not start.

The battery is a 3 year one and I only had it two years.....went and got a brand new battery..as this one had a dead cell and would not hold it's charge...Installed it and cleaned the terminals off good and used diaelectric. Still nothing but click click click. Replaced the negative cable with a new one today as the old cable had frayed near the connection on the car. Nothing....just click click click.

So i know it's not the battery. It may be the distributor or the starter itself. Ordered new dizzy and starter....will arrive on Friday. I will test the starter tomorrow by banging on it and seeing if that is the problem. I need to also check the fuses under the hood. #41, 42 and 40A to see if they are blown....but from what I've read I don't think I'm having those kinds of problems.
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I also have the 98 driving me bonkers.... I got the dreaded Code 1457 awhile back. Changed the Canister Shut Valve. The CEL stayed out for about a month and then came back on again. Those code readers are quite a blessing!!! Everyone should own one. Got a replacement shut valve and when installed the RPM's went up and the performance improved with the engine.... then the CEL came back on with the 1457 code....and the engine performance was back to sluggish again and the RPMs down. I spoke to a Honda Tech at my local Honda dealer that I drive nuts with my questions and he told me that just replacing the valve solenoid may not be the problem as they always replaced both the solenoid AND the canister and sometimes that was not the solution. The only other solution would be the two way valve in the fuel tank (which I had to replace last year) but not replaced the fuel pump. Do you think the canister is bad or is the 2 way valve bad?

Thank you for your help. I'm just a little old lady (70) and know about car repairs and used to do a lot more of my own work when I was younger but certain things are just beyond my ken at this point. I do watch a lot of YouTube stuff but these problems were not addressed.

eghatch9295

iTrader: (1)

when you turn the key to "on", do you hear the hum of the fuel pump priming? does it try to turn at all, or just click?

twinkiedooter

I had it towed to a shop with a new starter to be put in today. They just called and said they did not put in the new starter as it was the timing belt that broke. The car has 198K on it and when my regular mechanic looked at the belt 2 years ago he said it looked okay to him. The shop said they'd order a new timing belt water pump kit and put on the timing belt on Monday and see if the engine has any noise like it's been cooked and call me up and let me know.

The sound of the starter was a grinding noise the last time I turned it over in the driveway before it was towed. The last time I started it up it kinda hesitated and then started up okay. Then the next time I tried it it would click as the battery was dying...then after new battery it would just grind away. My son tried hitting starter and it felt like it wanted to start but didn't start.

What do you think? Do you think I cooked the engine by trying to start it?

mk378

When timing belt breaks, the pistons can crash into the valves, jamming the engine and likely damaging the valves. Shop should do a leakdown test to confirm that valves are OK before working on the timing belt.

Timing belt should be replaced every 100k miles or so, regardless of how it looks, to avoid this.

Clean2000Ex

Agreed. There is a good chance he puts everything back together and finds it has internal damage, then you still end up paying for a timing belt job that gets undone and redone if you decide to fix the engine. I lost my first Civic like this when I was just out of high school... Timing belt snapped and I had my mechanic replace it even though he warned me the engine may be damaged. It ran on 3 cylinders when I got it back.