Hi,

ONe of the grad student sin my lab has a 92 LX MT that has had an intermittent issue. The car will not start in hot weather(bad news in FL). In the past all it has needed is a jump start but it recently has quit working period, regardless of weather.

The jump start does not work. The lights and radio come on fine so it seems there is a charge in the battery. The starter is cranking but the car is not really turning over. Any ideas?

I am thinking something electrical like bad plugs/wires. I would believe a bad starter as well. Does the 92 have a distributor? I have had similar problems with bad distributors on other makes of cars but don't know the civic that well. Any other ideas?

He has not mentioned and check engine lights. I don't know if that's because he forgot, there aren't any, or there really is not enough juice to power them (rather unlikely).

The car is an older car with 150K+ miles(not that high IMO) so he's not willing to sink a lot of money into it. But a simple fix at home would be great.

Also, he's not car savvy and doesn;t know what was done at the last tune up(or when that was for that matter).

Thanks for any and all help.

 

Your jumping the gun here with plugs and distributor. Since the car will jump start sometimes with the battery (or it did), that means that either your battery is no good or the alternator is not charging the battery. WHen you try starting it, what happens? Does the car turn over or does nothing happen? Take the battery to the parts store and have it tested. A 92 does have a distributor but if the engine doesn't even turn over then the distributor cannot be the cause.

 

I have not actually tried starting it, just going by what the student has said.

The car apparently sounds like it is turning over but not firing up. He's telling me it sounds like a normal start without it actually starting. The first test to me is obviously check the battery but what's the next one?

I am also not sure the battery/alternator are the problem if it originally only happened in hot weather.

I do agree that the battery and alternator should be the initial suspects.

thanks for the help

 

If the starter is turning over the engine at the correct speed, then the problem is that the engine is not capable of running. You should check if there is spark and fuel.

 

sounds like a bad main relay,,,,,,,,,,ignitor or coil..........

as it was adviced chk for lack of spark or fuel........if lack of fuel chk the main relay
if lack of spark, test the ignitor, coil,, also remove the cap and take a look at the rotor sometimes the screw comes off ... and 1 last thing make sure rotor is turning ( not a broken t-belt )