2000 Accord 3.0 Cranks but won't start
 

Good afternoon guys, I'm new to the sight but not new to cars. I recently purchased a 2000 Accord 3.0 with an astounding ~380k miles. The car has been well maintained throughout its life with all routine maintenance completed by the dealership. The Previous owner was riding down the road and it just cut off and will not crank. Timing belts are less than 6 months old and look good. I've checked and it has fire on at the plugs. (I checked 2 of them). I couldn't find a place to plug my fuel pressure gage into but when I cracked the fuel line at the firewall, I was sprayed and when I turn the ignition switch on, I can hear the fuel pump running for about 4 or 5 seconds. Another clue that I've noticed is that after it sits for a while, say an hour, when I start it , it sounds like it wants to hit. Could this be a crank position sensor or cam sensor going bad? I ask because my Dad's truck was doing the same thing and after several hundred dollars of parts swapping, it was a $35 cam sensor. Any way to check? I'm really hoping to have this car going for my daughter to drive in a few months when she gets her license. Thanks in advance for any info on this.

Re: 2000 Accord 3.0 Cranks but won't start
 

I am a little uncertain if it is cranking or not at this point. If you turn the key and you hear something under the hood like err, err, err, then it is cranking. If you turn the key and you just hear a click then it is not cranking. If it is cranking and not starting, unless it sits for an hour, my guess would be the fuel injectors are leaking fluid and flooding the engine when you turn it off, and then you have to wait for that extra gasoline to evaporate and get out of the cylinders, which takes awhile. That is a classic symptom of leaking fuel injectors. In which case you can run some fuel system cleaner like Gumout multi-symptom, through it and see if you can clean them out. If you can't clean them out, if it was me, I would go to a junkyard and find what appears to be a good looking engine on one of these cars (Honda Accords built between model years 1998-2002 are all the same engine basically, and there are tons of these cars at junkyards because they were so popular) and take the fuel injectors out and try replacing them. It is quite a bit of work, but if you have a shop do it for you they will charge many hundreds of dollars. There are YouTube videos on how to do it. But first I would have the charging system checked for free at a place like AutoZone if you can get it there, or yourself if you have or can beg or borrow a voltmeter. to see what the battery voltage is. It should be more than 12.4 volts (although it is often called a 12 volt battery, it is actually, ideally, a 13.2 volt battery that gives a lower voltage as it ages). Do you know how old the battery is? These days there is usually a sticker on the battery indicating when it was made. Here in Texas they rarely last more than 3 years due to the heat. A weak battery can cause it not to start as well. For a very thorough understanding and diagnosis of the car's condition I would watch Schrodinger's Box Youtube video on the FASTTEC method. Or for a quicker, less thorough overview, you should search on "crank no start" youtube videos by Scotty Kilmer, Chris Fix, or Ericthecarguy videos and watch them. By the way, this generation of Honda Accord cars are legendary for transmission failures, so tell your daughter if she wants the car to get her around places for years, don't drive it aggressively. The 6 cylinder engine is powerful enough that it will overstress the transmission if she is flooring it and the car will start to shift roughly and eventually won't shift at all, which means a rebuild of the transmission would be needed, which is many thousands of dollars. I would check the transmission fluid and drain and fill it every 30,000 miles with only Honda brand transmission fluid as well. I have two accords, one of them is a 4-cyl, 2000 SE, and that's what I have done.

Re: 2000 Accord 3.0 Cranks but won't start
 

Thanks for the reply. It is actually turning over but not running. It has not ran since the day it shut off on the side of the road. When I purchased the car, the previous owner had just spend a wad of money on the car. Tranny rebuild, cv joints, new brakes all way around, new battery and new tires. Unfortunately for him, the car wasn't worth much not running so he sold it and kept the new tires and battery. I'll have to replace the now wore out tires and install a new battery once I get it going. Im currently using an optima out of my 64 ford truck for the troubleshooting process. One other thing that I forgot to mention is i tried a shot of ether in the breather and still no ignition. I'm not that familiar with newer technology in automobiles as I'm more of a hot toddler. 70 GTO, 64 Ford truck, 61 Mercury comet, etc. old school, no conputer automobiles. With the symptoms that I'm seeing tho and from what I've read up on this forum, I'm wondering if it could be a cam or crank sensor. Only thing is, I'd like to be somewhat sure before I tackle that. The crank sensor change that I've seen for a 4 cylinder seemed like an in depth task and I've not found any info on changing a cam sensor on a 3.0.

Re: 2000 Accord 3.0 Cranks but won't start
 

Check out Schrodinger's box video "Cam and Crank Shaft Sensor Basics".