Help! My 99 Honda Civic EX occasionally will not start. When I turn over the ignition key nothing happens. No accessories come on, no dome lamps - just no power to anything. To remedy the problem - I open my door and slam it shut. Immediately all power is restored to my accessories and then the car will turn over and start without any hesitation or issue. I'm a do-it-yourselfer - so if anyone has any ideas PLEASE PLEASE let me know - otherwise it's off to the mechanic.

 

my first guess would be to check the battery connections on both ends of the cable battery and engine sides dont know why slamming the door would have any effect unless a cable is loose or something

 

I agree with the idea of checking whether the battery connections are loose and/or corroded. Another possibility is that the connectors for the ignition switch are loose (see picture).

 

Thanks! This will give me a starting point. Slamming the door to get power back confused me too! Other times i've just rocked the car to get the power back. I checked the battery connections and they appear fine - no corosion and all connections are tight. Let me know if you would like me to post the solution when it's figured out. Thanks again!

 

We're always interested in knowing how and whether problems get resolved.

 

thats a good one i had that happen to my 92 jeep wrangler and it turned out that the switch that tells u that ur door is open, aka, the door light, was cross connected and would sometimes cause the power to drain from the battery. probubly not the case however the location of the door presure switch was near the fuse box which would ground the entire fuse box itself causing no power what so ever to the car, but then sometimes it would drain the entire batterry....hmmm good luck

 

Next time you can't start the engine, immediately try turning ON the headlights, which are independent of the ignition switch. If the headlights turn ON, then a third possibility is that you have a faulty ignition switch. Troubleshoot as described in the picture of my earlier post.

 

I once had my civic not start but that was because of a computer chip that plugs in under the dash. It had fallen out and i didnt know what had happened. then i put it back it and its back to normal...