Hello, and thanks for anyone who takes the time to look at and answer this. I will admit my lack of technical expertise up front, and will also make note of the fact that my car is a 2001 Accord EX 4-door with about 124,000 miles.

About a week and a half ago, I decided to take my car back to bare stock condition so that I could sell it. To do this, I took out my subwoofer and aftermarket stereo deck. I put the factory radio back in, and when I went to turn it on I found that the fuse had blown in the radio position between removing the aftermarket deck and reinstalling the factory one.

Fast forward a day or so, and I'm in the Wal-Mart parking lot. I start my car, it runs for about 10 seconds before sputtering out and cutting off. It would crank, but not catch. The shop I took it to said it was a blown main fuel relay and replaced that part. I picked up the car this morning and drove it all day without incident, except for the fact that the gas gauge had mysteriously started giving lower readings than what was really in the tank.

A few minutes ago I parked it at a gas station, went inside, and when I came back out and restarted it, it did the same turn on, sputter off, won't restart routine. Exact same process as the last time it blew the relay.

I should also note that back around Christmas I had a remote start system put in the car, and the cruise control mysteriously stopped working at this point. The shop that installed it denied any wrongdoing, as would be expected.

Obviously, this indicates that there is a larger problem in the electrical system. My question is, does anyone have any idea what this problem could be? Is this something that is at all common after changing out stereo equipment or making such modifications, or is it sheer coincidence that it happened after I put the factory radio back in? Does the gas guage being inaccurate relate in any way to the blowing fuel relay? And is the fuse blowing early on likely to be related to this whole problem? I realize that this is something that may be hard to diagnose without seeing the car in person, but I figured I'd throw it out there in case anyone had any prior experience with things like this. Thanks again-

~Bryn

 

All I can think of is, were any of the wires going to the gas tank (fuel pump, sending unit) messed with during the switch?

 

As far as I know there were no wires involved with the fuel system that I touched to make the switch. I swapped out my front speakers, removed my sub and amp (including wiring hooked to the battery, etc...), reinstalled the factory 6-disk changer, and removed the radar detector that I'd wired into the fuse box. Keep in mind that the car ran without so much as one glitch while all of this was installed, and only after it was taken out did this problem surface. I guess it's possible that in pulling out the subwoofer amp wiring, the wiring for the aftermarket deck, or the radar detector I nicked a wire behind the dash or something like that? I didn't notice anything like this, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen by accident without me knowing.

The other thing I was wondering about is whether the remote start could be going bad in it, somehow interfering with the ignition system? Just a thought.

Thanks for the reply-


~Bryn

 

Since you live in richmond I would be happy to look at it myself and see what is going on.

 

Hey, thanks for offering to help.

Come to find out, I put 2+2 together and realized that since the fuel sending unit was going out at the same time as the fuel pump was failing, and the only thing shared between them is a ground wire, that must be what was wrong. Sure enough, I went into the trunk, checked the ground connection, and it was loose. I tightened it up, and the problem went away instantaneously - gas guage became accurate again, and the car starts up without a hitch. I am incredibly happy that the fix for this problem was this simple, because the shop I was going to take it to was telling me that I'd have to go through a pinpoint electrical system diagnostic which would be massive amounts of money.

Anyway, for now it seems that everything is alright. Thanks everyone for the help and everything.