Hi everyone,

I am new here and hope to use this forum to build up my Honda knowledge. I have been driving a 1995 Honda Civic for almost 8 years now. At 146,000 miles it has been a reliable and cost efficent car. Of course it is getting older and is starting to need larger maintenance. Also, I am not a "car person" so I tend to learn about things after they have already gone south at which point I then learn to fix it or have it fixed by my machanic.

Rencently I noticed that my car...maybe sputters...while I am stopped at red lights. It will kind of sputter and then settle and then sputter and then settle. So I took it in and they said I need a tune up because the car is misfiring. This is totally possible because I haven't had a tune up in forever and of course they are the experts. My problem with their assesment is that last summer my car wouldn't start and I didn't know what was wrong with it. It turned out, according to the same auto place, that I needed an entirely new distributor and spark plugs. He mentioned that a tune up would involve spark plugs, a distributor cap, and a rotar (for the disributor I think?). My question is why do these parts already need to be replaced? Wouldn't the cap and rotar have been replaced when I had a new distributor put in last summer? I trust that the mechanic knows loads more than I do on this topic but I just want to understand better what is going on so that I don't feel like I am being screwed. If it matters he priced the job at $200.

If anyone with patience wants to help a novice I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks!

 

let him know that those parts have already been replaced. those parts are part of the standard tune up and he is right for recommending those. if you tell him you have already replaced those parts, he should acknowledge that and further diagnose your issue.
my guess would be that the ignition timing is off. this is a raised concern since the distributor was recently replaced. i wonder if the person who replaced the distributor checked/adjusted the ignition timing. when the distributor is removed and replaced, the ignition timing has been altered. Maladjusted ignition timing could certainly cause this issue.
$200 seems a little much. what else was included in the tune up?

i say check the ignition timing/have it checked by a pro. It is very simple and should be very inexpensive.

 

Update....I realized that my distributor was new last summer but not the cap which had a small crack along one of the screws from which I could see sparks coming from in the dark. So I replaced the cap myself which did not solve the problem and then decided to try new spark plug wires since mine have never been replaced as far as I know. Luckily the wires seemed to do the trick! No more "coughing." Would you still recommend having my ignition timing checked or does the absence of the symptom most likely mean the problem is solved?

 

yea my cap has a small crack on one of the screw holes but i'm not worried about it.

i'd say your problem is fixed, but you will still want to know that your ignition timing is correct.

just go to the mechanic who replaced your distributor last year and ask him if he adjusted the ignition timing when he replaced it. if he didn't do it, then in my opinion, he needs to do it for free, because adjusting the timing with distributor is standard procedure.