Hey everyone, I'm new here but have been lurking since my Prelude years (6yrs ago).

I'm currently driving (or was driving earlier today) an 05 Civic Automatic. I have recently (last month or so) had a strange issue where the car will appear to have 0 electrical function. Stick the key in the ignition, nothing...turn to ON...nothing....turn to START and nothing.

The first time this occurred I just took the key out and re-inserted it and everything was operational as expected.

The next time this occurred I was at home so I got out my meter and first tested the battery. It had perfect voltage. Then I checked for blown fuses and none appeared to be blown. At that point I put everything away and gave it another try and it fired up with full function again. I assumed at the time that I had wiggled a loose connection or something.

Today I was running errands with the wife and when we left the grocery store I put the key in the ignition, heard normal chimes, turned to start the car and dash lights and AC fan started to work but once I reached the START position, everything went completely dead. Turned to any key position and had 0 function of anything.

I piddled under the hood with the fuses again making sure everything was pushed in correctly and nothing blown. After several minutes I was able to get the car to function in the ON or position but as soon as I went to try to START again it killed all function. Was able to replicate this several times with "cool down" periods in between before it would respond to the "ON" position.

Initially I would remove the key and go back underhood to troubleshoot and then walk back around and insert the key and try to start.

At one point I left the key in the ON position with the car completely dead, wiggled fuses and wires and heard the chimes begin to function in the car. Had the wife go in and try to start while I was under hood and there was a pretty loud click from the fusebox area and everything was dead again.

I don't have much knowledge wiring modern cars but it was almost like there was a circuit breaker somewhere that was heat sensitive. Does anyone have some advice on how to parking lot troubleshoot this issue? My gut says if I go back in the morning when it is cool that everything will work fine. If that's the case I can get it home and into the garage to deep-dive into troubleshooting.

Thank you to anyone who can help me out here.

 

I would guess that this is a grounding issue. I currently have a more intermittent grounding issue. Last night I had identical symptoms, 5 minutes later it starts right up. My usual symptoms are a brief ABS light and the radio cuts off.

If you look up The Big 3 Civic 01, you'll see the wires you should check and or replace.