I've had issues starting my car since I've owned it. I was 100% certain the problem was the fuel main relay, as I've had this problem before with civics and CRX, somedays it just wont turn over, but you can clearly hear the fuel pump is not engaging, wait a bit, try again, and then it turns over just fine.

But now, my car is randomly stalling. It happened a few times about 4 months ago, but now its happening all the time. I'll be driving, at any speed, and suddenly its like the car ran out of gas, all electronics are working fine, but car starts decelerating, I lose power steering, etc.

This happened 5 times today when I was driving, once on the freeway, then stopped happening and drove it another 50 miles without issue. After pulling over, and trying to start the car again, its violently shakes while trying to start (usually it starts smooth as butter), this feeling is very unusual for this car, and a new symptom to me.

The car is throwing p0401, but its had this issue for years, so unrelated.

Its a 2000 Accord EX 2dr, about 170k miles, runs perfectly fine when it actually runs.

I'm thinking low fuel pressure due to an old pump or possibly need to change the fuel filter (I've never actually changed it on this car for at least 80k miles, possibly more)

Please help! Any ideas?

 

If you replaced PGM-FI main relay it could be ECM/PCM is flakey. Or Ignition switch. Check fuel pressure. Clean your EGR.

 

I never replaced the fuel relay, it never really had issues other than with startup - once it worked, it worked for good, and I found that to be true with the other cars that I had the same issue with. I've had the car for 6 years.

 

Hmm... my car was doing this a few months ago and it turned out to be the ignition switch. Cost was about $55 for the part, it is easy to replace by yourself.

On my car, which has a manual transmission, when it would die it would either start back up by itself after a few seconds or I would need to turn the key to restart it, while driving at highway speeds. The "all electronics are working fine" also happened for me, the display panel would be blank but the radio never missed a beat.

Call the dealer with your VIN and see if your car was a part of the ignition switch recall, and if so, if the work was done on it. You may be able to get a free ignition switch as a part of the recall.

 

So just wanted to follow up here:

I replaced the ignition switch, and for 3 weeks had no issues with it dying. Then suddenly yesterday it died twice again.

What are my options now, is it likely the ECM, or possibly fuel relay?

Anyone know where you can get either of those for cheap? I just want to get this issue solved, having your car die randomly is not fun.

Thanks in advance for any advice.