Before you read any of this, please understand I'm not very mechanically inept.

For the past week and a half, my car has been reving (possibly cylinder misfiring?) (for lack of better knowledge to describe it) when I start it. It only does this after I start it after it hasn't been started for a few hours. If I start it, then turn it off, then start it again, it starts as if nothing is wrong. Once the car is started, the untrained ear wouldn't be able to tell there's anything wrong with it. Now, I realize that it's difficult to explain because of my ignorance towards the mechanical side of cars. To better help your diagnosis, I took an audio clip with my iPhone. It's a little quite and is a lot longer than it needs to be. You'll be able to hear it from about the 2 second mark to the 4.5 second mark. This is exaggerating exponentially when I'm low on gas. When I had the inspection done when I first bought the car there were 2 things that they recommended that we do to it, but didn't. One is the struts were marginal, but that obviously wouldn't affect anything. The other is a new timing belt. I don't think either would matter, but I figured I'd mention it. If you need any more information, let me know.

So here is the clip taken after several hours of the car not being started for a long period (ignore the beeping.. It's just telling me to put my seat belt on): http://www.zshare.net/download/76024947ede048aa/

And here is the clip of the car starting after being started recently: http://www.zshare.net/download/76025408cd8b9b0e/

Now, I understand that my best option is to go to a mechanic and get it checked out, and believe me I will, I just want to know some of the possible causes and maybe an approximate cost to fix it.

Thanks for any and all help!

 

I can't hear the engine in the sound clips...

So is the revving up and down, or does it rev high and stay high? Revving up a little bit while the engine warms up is normal, but once the engine is warm the RPMs should slowly return to a normal idle. Revving up and down is not normal though.

 

Revving isn't really the word I was looking for.

I just found out the correct term.. When the engine first cranks it takes longer than normal. Again, this problem is exaggerated when I'm lower on fuel. Is this difficult to diagnose? Are the different causes expensive to fix?

Thanks again

 

My engine takes a little longer to start when it's been sitting a while too. It always starts though so I don't really consider it a problem.

 

It's normal for Civics. If it annoys you, turn the key to ON(II) to let the fuel pump finish priming (2 seconds) before turning key to START/ON(III).

 

That works, thanks! I just wanted to make sure it wasn't something major that needed to be fixed immediately.