I thought I would turn to the boards here at Hondatech.com. I noticed your site at Bigboards.com, you have a huge member base, and I am hoping you can help me out with a problem.
My wife has a 99 Civic EL, she's had it since new. It has 203,00 km on it, so it should have plenty of life still in it.
Well a week or so ago she tells me that the Civic is "stalling", losing all power when she uses here turn signal Ok I'm sure your thinking the same thing I was. Well since then it has happen 3 more times (once while cruising on the highway, no brakes, no turn signal, nothing) No "Check Engine" light.
So we take it to our mechanic, who keeps it for a few days to drive around, and hopefully the power will cut out on him also. No such luck, of course. Well the mechanic replaces the distributor. We take it home, and the next day it cuts out on my wife again when she is out shopping. She has to coast in neutral to the side of the road, and restart the car. It takes her 3 attempts.
So I take the Civic out for a good ride for an hour, nothing.
Does anybody here have any idea if this is common problem with the 99 Civic? We have had it for 10 years without any problems.

Thanks in advance.

 

Could be a bad ground.

 

It is very sporadic. The first time was 2 months ago, a month and a half no problem. And now 4 times in 2 weeks.

Also I forgot to mention that my wife says it revs high before cutting out.

 

very weird

so it happens random, try driving with no electronics, or load and see what happens

these things are very hard to fix

 

Yeah, it never happens when you want it too. I am going to drive it back and forth to work all week (its my wife's car) and see if there is any other noticeable symptom before it cuts out.
Wifey will be stranded though, my trucks a standard.

 

driving lessons for wifey?

 

lol

 

Try to think of any similarities with these occurences. Was it raining each time, perhaps? Something might be shorting out...

 

Are you saying that the car suffers from a complete electrical power loss or that the engine simply stalls? If the latter is true, then you may have a bad main relay or, as mentioned above, the critical ground wire on the thermostat housing is loose or corroded.