Hi,

Can some one please help me diagnose the problem with my 2001 Honda Prelude. The symptoms are as follows.

1. While driving, the ABS light and the Check oil light turned on.
2. After about 5 seconds, the speedometer and the RPM meter stopped working but the engine was still on and I was driving at 30 Mph.
3. When I pulled over, the car engine shut off and I could not start it again. It is completely dead.
4. I was able to restart it after about 10min. It worked normally for about 5 minutes before the problem repeated.

NOTE: 2 days earlier I took the car to get the timing belt changed and replace a leaky cam end plug. There was some white smoke under the hood after that, but the mechanic said that it was due to the washed off oil leak.

I talked to the mechanic, who made the timing belt change, and he says it could be due to a faulty alternator and nothing to do with the timing belt change. That may be the case, but the co-incidence of this problem happening 2 days after the timing belt change is hard to ignore.

Can you please help me diagnose the problem?

Thanks in advance!

 

did u check ur alternator / battery?

 

sounds like you got shot with one of those EMP guns from Fast & Furious II

anyway, bad alternator is my guess

 

Def sounds like an electrical problem. I also had my gauges stop working when my voltage got really low. In my case, it ended up being a corroded alternator cable, so it wasn't supplying fresh juice to the battery. Cleaned up the connection and it's been fine. If you can get access to a voltage meter, that should tell whether it's the alternator or battery. With the car running, you should be getting around 14 volts if the alternator is good. If it's quite a bit lower than that, check connections and think about a new alternator. If you can find a battery shop around, or even a regular automotive shop, most of them will check batteries and alternators for free and tell you if something is wrong (call first to make sure, though). Since you're losing power while driving, though, I would suspect the alternator; the battery is mainly for starting, and after that is being fed by the alternator.