I am posting this for a friend of mine hwo has a 91 Accord, not sure what model but it is an automatic. He told me that he recently started having a problem with his car where it would run fine when he starts it up and it warms up, but when it reaches operating temperature it cuts off on him. He has to wait a few minutes and can start it up again.

He brought it to a shop and they claimed it is b/c of his transmission and are trying to charge him $800 for another tranny.

I wanna help him out b/c I don't wanna see him get ripped off. He didn't mention any problems that the tranny could be having with shifting. I am thinking that it doesn't have to do with the trans at all, or if it does then maybe just a sensor of some sort. I am not too familiar with automatic transmissions.

Has anyone else experienced a problem like this?

 

I really don't think it has to do with the tranny. Tell him to get a second opinion before he does anything. That sounds fishy...

 

is it throwing any codes?

 

I am not sure, I haven't witnessed it in person. He is very illiterate with cars. I asked him if his check engine light was on and I am pretty sure he said no. Maybe I can check it out. I am used to working on my EF, so where is the Accord ecu mounted (pass. side)? It should be OBD0, right? I'll check and see what/if it is throwing codes.

 

Maybe way off, but a friend had a 80 capri that would shut off at temp.

Took us forever to figure it out, but there was a crack in the radiator hose (after the thermostat.

Car would get hot, thermostat would open squirt a pin sized stream of coolant right on top of the distributor. Replaced the hose and never happened again.

 

The problem you are experiencing has nothing to do with the transmission.

You will have to try this when it does it again to try to figure it out.

#1 ... pull a plug wire off and poke a screwdriver into it and place the shaft of it near the valve cover and have him crank the car to see if you have spark. If you do NOT have spark ... you are either looking at a coil or igniter inside the distributor. There are tests for these ... but I can not go into details here.

They also had recalls years ago on the distributors for these cars. You may want to pull the cap off and see if it is all covered with a dark brown "dust" type powder inside. If it is ... bearing in distributor is shot and replacement is only cure.

#2 ... If you have spark ... the next thing is to see if you have fuel. You have a couple of choices here to test for that. First ... you can locate the fuel filter on the firewall on thepassenger side of the car and follow the hose that goes to the fuel rail behind the valve cover. Disconnect the hose ... and just turn the key on. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE HOSE IN A CUP OR SOMETHING BECAUSE IF YOU ARE GETTING FUEL IT WILL PUMP OUT HARD AND FAST. If you have a hard spurt of fuel ... then you should be okay in that department. If not ... you may be experiencing a main relay problem.

The other thing you can try is to open the air filter box like you were gonna change the air filter and holding it in the air you can spray some starting fluid down the round tube that leads to the throttle body. Have him crank the car and if it starts ... you will know that you have spark and that you have a fuel problem.

These 2 areas are more then likely where your problem is ... but it is definately NOT in the transmission.


[Modified by mwkirchner, 10:21 PM 3/18/2003]

 

If no dash warning lights come on when the car dies, you might suspect the ignition switch.

Another thing to check might be the TW sensor. I know it can prevent re-starts on a warm engine. I don't know if it can kill one that's already running, though.