Yesterday, my wife was going down the freeway in our 98 LX 5-speed 4-cyl. All of a sudden, with NO warning, the tach and speedo just died and dropped to zero. Stereo, fan, etc. apparently ran normally. She floored the gas (5th gear), but nothing happened. So she downshifted to 4th and floored it again. All of a sudden the gages jumed up to where they should be and the car ran normally for the rest of the trip. The whole sequence only took about two seconds I guess. She said it happened about a month ago too.

I guess we were somehow missing fuel or spark for a couple of seconds, but which and why I don't know. The car has about 88k of mostly freeway miles and has never given us a problem before. The spark plugs are stock NGK and only a few months old. Air filter is also nearly new. I plan on doing the cap, rotor, wires and fuel filter this weekend. Where is the fuel filter on this car anyway?

A couple of times a week my wife commutes to school in Cinnincanti, which is over 60 miles away. I'd hate for her to get stranded on a busy freeway. I would be grateful for any advice or suggestions any of you could provide.

PLEASE HELP, HONDA ENGINE GURU'S!!!
thanks
-Low_bias

 

I think that if this really happened, the car would stall...sorta like running out of gas. It would not just return back to normal a few seconds later without you turning the key and cranking the engine. At least this is my hypothesis.

 

It really does sound like you lost spark for a few seconds. If you're not firing but you still have your foot on the throttle, the car will act like that. Sorry I'm not too familiar with Accords, but maybe it's the ignitor or coil.

 

If the speedo died, then it sounds as if there was a transmission problem as well. Sounds like a bad computer...

 

Doesn't sound like an engine problem tho... sounds like the cluster was momentairly disconnected. HE said she downshifted to 4th so I'm guessing it's a 5 speed... Maybe the connector is loose? Isn't that the part of the car that is made by Ford?? go figure that's the weak link.

 

We better call Mulder and Scully. This sounds like an X-File. Actually, the same thing happened to me in my old '89 Accord. At highways speeds everything just died. It was the strangest thing to ever happen to my car. The tach dropped to its resting position. I would put the pedal to the floor and there was nothing. I let it cost to a stop on the shoulder. Waited a few minutes and cranked it back up. It ran fine from that point on. I know this may sound somewhat unrelated but I would have your fuel pump checked as well as the fuel lines. You may have had electrical power but nothing else. Take it to the dealer if you absolutely have to and explain what happened to them.

 

I had a different car but the same problem about 5 years ago. My mass-airflow meter was on the fritz (I didn't know it at the time) but it shut off just same way, and then restart minutes later. Turns out it was dumping so much fuel in the motor it couldn't keep itself running. Do Accords have MAF meters?

 

The V6's, or some V6's, have the FoMoCo cluster. They stated:
But I'm guessing electrical/computer though. Cluster should not cause engine to not run right, and engine not running right should not stop speed from working.

ControlNode

 

Thanks for all the advice guys. Looks like I have my work cut out for me...especially since the problem is so sporadic. I do think it is an electrical and not a fuel problem though. That would explain why the tach died.

I posted the same question on Car & Driver .com as well. An Accord owner there said he heard of that happening on 5th gen Accords due to corrosion on the gage cluster connecter, but never heard of it happening on a 6th gen.

Another guy suggested the ground wire on the engine was loose, which sounds perfect except for the speedometer issue. How does the speedo work anyway? Is it off of the tranny speed, or based on rpm and gear selected?

Do any of those ideas seem plausible?

Anyway...I can't really throw parts off of this problem because it would be so hard to tell when it is fixed. I got my wife AAA instead, and I'll get her a cell-phone this weekend.

Keep the ideas coming though.

thanks again
-Low_bias

 

Sounds like something is wrong with you ignition switch. Just a guess. (Anyway that’s my two cents)