2 months ago it died right after starting the car before I even had time to put it in gear. I just restarted the car and off I went. 2 weeks later exact same thing....thought water in gas changed fuel filter good to go for a week. Now the last 2 weeks I have been continually stranded everywhere as it seemed fine to start in morning after sitting all nite I run to store come out cranks no start. Wait 20 min. It fires right up! But this week increasingly worse, not starting after sitting a day then all of a sudden fires up I go drive and this last 2 times Im actually cruising about 40 miles down road no sounds just died thank goodness I am able to coast to side park it and begin to walk home. BF took it to AutoZone last week and tried to get codes but it gives nothing. Bf checked spark plug and said weak orange spark. Then 10 min. Later it starts. He says fuel is in the plug and I can hear the fuel pump run when turning key initially. I'm so tired of this. Bought car 2 years ago used and its been perfect. Regular maintenance done oil change etc. Over 200,000 miles on her. Any ideas of which way to troubleshoot? Thank you in advance for Any help. Liz

 

Maybe a loose ground wire. Have you had a tune up done in the last two years? How does it drive when its running? any sputtering while driving? If the spark is weak, like the BF said, then you may just need a simple ignition tune up ( spark plugs, spark plug wires, replace the cap and rotor in the distributor) You already changed the fuel filter so no need to do that with the tune up. Good luck and if you figure out what it was then please update your post and let us know what you did to fix it.

 

I don't know if this issue continued into the CR-Vs, but the Civics of the 90's were notorious for failing ignition modules and ignition coils (particularly the modules, I believe). I had one fail on both my '90 Civic and my '95 Civic during the course of my ownership. Since the distributor setup is the same on the CR-V engine as it is on the Civic engines (ignition module and coil located UNDER the distributor cap), I'd assume the issue could be there also. When the module fails it will generally fail in this conditional stalling/no-start behavior because the fail condition is related to overheating of the unit. When the car is cold (like after an over-night) the unit operates fine. Once the unit has been in operation and the circuitry is warm, that's generally when the issue presents. Legit Honda ignition modules aren't very cheap...I've seen like 200-300 bucks on Ebay. Generic ones are much cheaper, but they may present their own issues since they're usually China sourced, and China isn't known for their ability to manufacture quality electronics (see Hoverboards for Exhibit A). Someone may be able to chime in with best way to diagnose these. In the past I just guessed based on the likelihood of it being the root cause in a Civic. Good luck!

 

What are the signs of a bad igniter?


<------- NEC is a good known brand. If you don't have an NEC or HITACHI then that could be the problem.

1. The tachometer quits abruptly or jerks around before stalling.
   
2. Once the car warms up and the igniter gets hot then the car dies. Occasionally it'll start back up or when the car has to sit and cool then it'll repeat the same symptoms.
   
3. For manual transmission, no spark, but when push start down hill, rpm won't shoot up.
   
4. Engine cranks but RPM needle on the gauge won't show a hint of life. (Remember, you won't be able to see the differences. The movements are very hard to point out. This is reserved for the keen observer and those with an extra strong car battery.)
   
5. No spark at the coil or No on/off voltage at the coil's (+, - ) terminals when cranking but find injectors pulsing or clicking. See section 4 of this page.
   
6. OKI brand was used.
   

Honda Acura ignition (no spark) troubleshooting tutorial - How to

 

^^Yep, this guy is why you join a forum.

 

I had the exact same issue 3 months ago, and just like ThisIsMatt and HondaPartsHero have stated, that was the problem, changed out the ignition module and coil and issue resolved.