Yesterday afternoon, my 1988 Honda Civic stalled twice. It stalled as I began to back my car out of the parking space in the apartment parking lot. It stalled a second time on the street and lost power in the seconds preceding this second stall. Fortunately, I was able to restart the car both times and drive it to the repair shop.

The repair shop says that the the igniter is bad. The repair shop also thinks that the distributor is bad and that a bad distributor caused the igniter to fail. The shop is quoting me $540 to replace both the igniter and distributor (including rotor and cap).

My questions:
1. Does the repair shop make sense?
2. How does one tell if the distributor is bad? Is the distributor really shot, or is the repair shop trying to rip me off?
3. How exactly do the igniter and distributor work with each other?
4. Would this igniter be covered under the recall? If so, can I have
the repair done for free from a non-dealer repair shop?

Jason Hsu, AG4DG
forums@jasonhsu.com

 

if it is the igniter and distributor that caused your car to stall, then you can do it yourself and save all that cash but you don't know for sure so i'd say the best bet is to take it to a honda dealership and have them take a look at it.
this way, your money is not going to waste cuz if they **** up somehow, take it back and they will repair it for free. they got warranties on labour and parts so it only makes sense. dunno bout you...but that's what i would do if i was in the same situation

 

1. I don't know, I didn't talk to them.
2a. By inspecting and testing it.
2b. I don't know, I'm not able to check your distributor.
3. The igniter tells the coil when to fire and the distributor sends the spark to the correct cylinder.
4. What recall? There used to be a product update campaign, but that has expired a long time ago.

BTW $540 is a little on the high side.

 

thats highway robbery.!!!

take your car home....
go to a scrap yard. pull an old dizzy of a car. and slap her in there...
both problems fixed..!

good luck.!

 

540 sounds perfectly fine, My friends civic did the same thing until one day it just wouldnt turn over...you knew it was the distributor since it was so loud and squeaking....He took it into the dealership and they quoted him around 500 +/-

Well like everyone else in here said, we decided to scrap that idea, we went to a parts shop, and bought a brand new one for 350 and installed it easy as pie, car runs like a charm now.....good thing to cuase we waited so long that after a while his car wouldnt even turn over.