OK, this is weird. Went to the garage this morning, and noticed that our '98 Civic EX 4-door was making a faint, non-rythmic almost "groaning" sound from under the hood, obviously some kind of electrical sound. Also, the dome light was flickering randomly. The keys were out of the ignition, and all the doors were closed.

Anyone know what this might be before I call a shamen to exorcise the demons from my car?

 

Groaning under hood -- Was the radiator fan running?

Dome light flickering -- check each door switch and the dome light switch.

 

If it still has the factory radio, the radio controls the dome light in those, as part of the keyless entry system. Maybe the battery has run down, various electronic parts tend to go haywire when that happens. Is the battery dead now?

 

Incorrect statement deleted.

 

Thanks for the quick responses, guys. When I noticed this, I got in the car, and it fired right up - no battery drain. I played with the dome light switch, and it turned on and off normally. I was on the way to work (on a motorcycle, the Civic is the wife's car), so I didn't have time to do any other diagnosing.

The noise wasn't the fan under the hood, and didn't sound like an electrical motor running - more like a solenoid or a relay struggling to move.

My wife just told me that the car runs fine, but now the keyless remote doesn't work.

The car still has the factory radio. I recently replaced the keyless remote fob with a new one, and it programmed just fine and has been working good.

Guess I'll try to reprogram the remote and see what happens. Any other ideas?

Thank you!

 

If the noise you are hearing is what I think it is it's the fuel vapor cannister venting. My 2000 Prelude does it, and both of my 2000 Civic Ex's do it too. It kind of sounds like an animal moaning/crying underneath a towel or a squeaky deflating balloon. This noise lasts about three seconds and sometimes repeats every ~15min.

 

Hmmm... The fuel vapor venting makes sense. Kind of sounds like what you described. I reprogrammed the remotes, and all seems to be working well for now. The door switches all seem to work fine. Wonder what that was all about.

 

change the battery in the remote. this happened to me when the battery in my remote goes out. change it and just reprogram it and it will solve the problem.
not sure why it does this but pretty weird when it does it.
hope this helps.

 

Did that, thanks jsusanka. Everything has been working fine for the last few days. Hope whatever it is went away...

 

Good info.