Hello,

After looking at several cars (mostly Honda Accords) during the last month, I just purchased a 1991 Honda Accord LX today. Seems to be a good car and got it for the price I could not pass up, even though it has 189,000 miles. My "S" light is almost always on, NOT blinking. As long as it's ON, the car appears to run well and does not stick in 2nd gear. However, during my 30 mile trip home, the "S" light flashed OFF for a second (or less) causing the RPMs to drop slightly. This happened 3 times during the 30mile trip. When the "S" light came back on, the RPM would pick back up slightly.

Since I haven't been driving this car long, I'm not sure what normal RPM is while cruising at 70mph. I owned a 91 Honda CRX HF (manual transmission) years ago and it seemed to run at slightly lower RPM at interstate speeds. It almost feels as if the car isn't shifting into OVERDRIVE(5th gear) but maybe this is normal for an automatic. Perhaps the "S" sports setting doesn't allow the transmission to run in OVERDRIVE.... doesn't seem to matter if I have the "S" button pressed in or not on the automatic shifter.

Also, I noticed that when I start the car, the "S" light doesn't always come on immediately. But once it comes on it appears to stay on. The only time it will flicker off is when I'm cruising at higher speeds.

Anyways, I will have a service manual soon. Do you think I should try pulling the TCU and inspecting it like Brain3208(Mike) did? Any other suggestions?


Thanks in advance,
-Ralph.

 

I just fixed a similar problem. it ended up being a bad TCU, they are know for leaky capacitors inside which will cause intermittent problem like this depending on how bad they have leaked. Pull your carpet near on the passenger floor up(near the firewall) and you should see 2 boxes. the one on the Right is the TCU. if their is a Flashing light on their you must count these pulses and write down your results. post them here and someone will be able to help further.

Brain