Need some advice before I spend $200 fixing something that already got fixed once (maybe twice).

OKay, this has been an intermittent issue since I owned the car, but very intermittent and usually seemed to start up within 30 seconds of attempts. I also owned a 1991 Accord that did the same thing. I have already read on other forums and spoken with other people who have described similar issues, so I must not be alone here, but whenever I talk to the local Honda dealer they look at me with blank stares and want to charge me $100 to hook it up to their computer.

Heres the problem

(Symptom A) Car won't start: When you turn the key you can hear the engine trying to turn or crank, but won't start. Occasionally the car will start up, but die out and then you can't start it up again. Usually waiting 30-60+ minutes you can turn the car on and it will start up like nothing was ever wrong with it.

(Symptom B) This is less common, but sometimes it won't crank at all and won't start. You can hear it click and a humming sound (Fuel Injector?) but no cranking occurs. When this happens I can sometimes slightly turn the wheel while turning the ignition and it will start up.

I personally believe these are two separate issues, maybe related, but they seem to happen separately from one another. Plus with symptom A, turning the wheel slightly doesn't make a difference in starting the car.

Both seem to be affected by the weather. When its cool out or cloudy this very rarely seems to happen (but has happened). As the weather is getting warmer it is happening a lot more frequently.

The battery is strong and is NOT the issue.

Okay, so this is what has been done about it in the past:

In July 2008 when the symptoms seemed to be worsening to where either my wife (with are then 2 month old child) or I would get stranded somewhere I decided to take it in. Up to that point the problem wasn't consistent enough to really bother me and it always seemed I could get it started within a minute or two.

I took it to my local Honda dealer knowing I might pay a little more for service but hoping I would get a long lasting repair and that they would even fix the right thing.

They replaced the "Ignition Switch Back(Electrical Portion)". This part costs ~62.00 + labor/diagnostics.

The problem seemed to be fixed, except after 2 months I started to notice Symptom B again, but not A. I should have taken it straight back to Honda, but since again it always started right back up and I wasn't noticing symptom A I just wrote it off.

Now Symptom A is back in full force and happening every other time I try to start the car.



Before I take it to Honda and pay them to fix something that might come back again in a year, does anyone have any suggestions as to what the underlying issue might be? What might cause an ignition switch to go out in less than a year?

Also I couldnt find the paperwork on it but I remember them replacing it as part of a ReCall back in 2004 or so. http://www.internetautoguide.com/aut...ord/index.html Was that the same part? That means it would have been replaced twice already and is going out again.

There must be an underlying issue here!


Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

symptom b sounds like a bad starter. the click would be from the selenoid attached to the starter.
for symptom a read threadstarter "loosecannonlv" problems with the electric ignition switch last updated on 6-8-09 to study your symptoms in comparision to assist your diagnosis.

 

Thanks for that info. If I keep seeing that I will have to get that checked out as well.

An update, I did take my car in this morning and it looks like the work I paid for 11 months ago was under a 12 mo/12k mileage warranty, that thankfully I was stilll under! They were going to see if they could find any other issues, but they are going to fix it again under warranty.