Hello all,

I am afraid that I will not be a regular on this board, but could use some assistance.

My mother was given a 98 CR-V by a friend just prior to him passing away.

The car has a ton of km on it (417k). And runs really well, while it runs.

The problem is that a while ago it just died and would not restart on a friend who was using her vehicle.
After playing with some fuses (coincidence only), it finally restarted and had not problems for a couple weeks.

I did the timing belt, water pump, and some other deferred maint on it, but was not made aware of that prior occourance.

Then she came down from up country and was on the freeway, it bucked a couple times (on/off) then turned off and would not restart.

I went out to inspect it and found the fuel pump was working as it got a nice 2 sec burst of fuel out the regulator. But there was no spark.

It was in a dangerous location so it was towed to a place I could work on it.

When it arrived it would start, but it stalls out after 15sec to the longest of 5 min. The time is very random and seems to have no link to engine temperature. However the first start after sitting it will always die after around 20-30 sec.

I phoned the dealer and they said that there was no relays (typical symptoms of a relay) between the ign switch and the brains. So we replaced that (after I found out if the headlights stay on that the switch is OK), no love. And it being an electrical part it is non returnable.
It was then determined that there was the main relay. I found it and popped it open. I saw no problems with the solder joints which is how they seem to fail from searching.
As is typical practice on german cars that I normally work on I re-ran the solder, and added some fresh solder too. I removed all the covers and watched the relay in action.
The relay clearly turns off after the motor stalls out. Thus I feel I can safely deduct that as the cause of the turn off.

When the motor turns off, it does not stumble in any way shape or form. There are no error codes, or check engine light. The battery and charging system are good, and the battery terminals, and a few of the larger grounds have been cleaned.

Now I really wish that the thing would just not start again so I can find the problem and rectify it. However that would be too simple!

So I am left with I believe the problem either being the ICM, or the ECM.
However as both of these items are larger items and not readily available to me, and also unreturnable after I would like some possible further diagnostics prior to their replacement.

I have removed the ICM for now as I have found some threads indicating that they do fail. I am also planning on getting to the junk yard tomorrow in hopes of finding a car that has sustained a serious impact as the cause of it being there so that I know the part should be good (after all it drove to the scene of the crash).

However my plea here is that there might be a knowledgeable tech viewing this forum who is familiar with this vehicle who could give me some better diagnostics for this specific vehicle prior to the throwing parts at it approach.

I am not willing to take it to the stealership, and she could never afford that anyways.

So all help is appreciated.

Cheers!

 

I'm guessing coil or igniter, Honda ECUs rarely go bad. You can get both from any '92 - '00 Civic, '93 - '97 Del Sol, '92 - '01 Integra or '97 - '01 CR-V

 

I'd second that assumption.

 

have you ran teh VIN number to see if the ignition switch recall has been done? my car has NOT had the recall done, and i have similiar issues with random dying. i ASSUME thats the cause and need to get it into the dealer. i have swapped ignitor/coil, and resoldered teh main relay just like you have, and still have the issue (all roads point to ignition switch)

 

As I know how frustrating it is to see a topic without a conclusion posted by the OP I am posting my findings today.

I went to the junkyard and found that there was only 1 car in the yard from those years with the distibutor there.
So I opened it up and it appeared that both the coil and ICM were very recent replaced. I took both items as I figured if I had to come back the other would undoubtably be gone.
I installed both units at the same time and the vehicle has been running for an hour or so without so much as a blip.

Cheers!

 

lol mine did the same thing.....i actually went 4 days without my car dying. then it went back to its daily routine of dying.

you should register your VIN out of curiosity and see if yours has had the ignition replaced....

https://www.ahm-ownerlink.com/login..../prod_home.asp

 

If you had read the original post thouroughly you would have read the switch had already been replaced

as well I did run the VIN and it had been replaced which is why I had to buy a new one...