Hello! So I'm not super technical and please forgive the length of this post. My 98 accord LX 4-speed (180k average mileage) has been having issues. Last week while inching forward to make a turn, my car lurched and then shut off. All the lights and instrumentation stayed on, and the maintenance light flashed once (while lurching) then went off. After putting it in park and shutting of the air (not a/c) and radio it started up and only occasionally gave a rough idle while driving home (3mi in moderate traffic). The next day I was driving (about 30-40mph) let off the gas, and then the car lurched twice then died, again the maintenance light flashed right after both lurches and went off. I rolled into a gas station, parked, and then the car started up fine, no more issues.

I took it to Autozone to test battery and alternator. Battery was bad, so I replaced it. Retested and both were fine. Yesterday stuck in heavy traffic (About 1mi in length), and the car wouldn't shift to second. Finally shifted after a much more pronounced lurch (than I had previously felt) shortly after that everything shut off (except instrumentation again and that pesky maintenance light flashed once again) then came back to life and the car drove fine. This problem never seems to happen at night when its cooler. So-Cal days have been upper 80-100's with HUMIDITY. I'm at a loss because this seems to only happen in thick traffic around 5pm. I thought my transmission might be going, but again this doesn't happen in the cooler hours. If anyone has any ideas I would be grateful to hear them.

Also not sure if its related but my temp gauge intermittently works and then flat lines. My car isn't overheating and I have plenty of coolant. This has been happening since I bought the vehicle in Jan. Thanks again!