The past 3 summers I have had difficulty cranking my car but only occasionally. It only happens at certain times. It never happens in the morning when the car has sat all night. It only happens when I go somewhere and leave the car long enough for the engine to be completely cool (atleast 2 hours). When I return to the car it will crank on the first time, but it runs extremely rough and within 3 or 4 seconds it will shut off. When I crank it again it will shut off almost immediatly. On the third and consecutive times it will just turn over and sounds like it won't even fire. The peculiar thing is that I will return to the car in 15 minutes and it will crank on the first time and run perfectly. This problem only happens sporatically during the hot months. When I sent it to the dealership they expained that no warning light is on and then they ran it on the computer and got nothing and said that they can't fix it. I am tired of being stranded and desperately need help.

 

Check your plugs and wires. when was the last time you changed the plugs? how many miles do you have on them? If you pull them and they are brown, no tips, and dripping... well.... need I say more?

 

i have a 98, mine does this too. i have searched a lot on the internet and people with 98-99 have this problem a lot. i dont think there is anything to do. the honda service center in memphis and they have had people come in but they cant find the problem and it wont do it why the car is there?? so i just have to stick with it. its happened to me a few, exactly the way you described. sputters then dies.

 

From your description, I would suspect a fuel pressure problem. It would help to rig a fuel pressure gauge "semi-permanent". Run the pressure line from under the hood to windshield and tape the fuel pressure gauge to the windshield w/ masking tape. Monitor pressures to see if pressure may be dropping too low when starting problem arises.

Also could be electrical fault causing fuel delivery problem; main fuel relay or fuel pump. Check that fuel pump is running when no-start condition arises.

good luck

 

it is a bad main relay ... we had one in our shop 2 months ago with this problem and we changed the relay and it fixed the problem....

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Stripped Honda &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">it is a bad main relay ... we had one in our shop 2 months ago with this problem and we changed the relay and it fixed the problem.... </TD></TR></TABLE>

theres no real way to tell if you fixed the problem. it only happens every once in a long while. if ever. its only happened to mine twice, maybe three times, in 4 years. but ive heard a lot that its the main relay, but then ive heard that is a different problem. main relays are cheap if you wanna try it, but i dont think thats the problem since i had mine checked