Hi All,

I am having a really weird problem on a 2003 civic lx 4cylinder manual trans 4 door.. which does not appear to have a solution, so I come to you the experts to help me. What happens is while driving, one by one every indicator light comes on, starting with abs, then the brake light, then drl, oil, airbag then the speedometer, tach, gas and fuel gauges will go to zero, yet the car will continue running without a hitch for a while and then the gauges will all come back the car will run for a bit and the same will happen again except in one of the successive times, the car will actually turn off and the battery will be dead and I am at the side of the road.

First time it happened I managed to reach my destination came back to the car and it would not start. The battery was dead. Had to get a boost. I decided to buy a new battery and put that in. The second time it happened was earlier this weekend. Pulled over on the 402 and got a boost from a tow truck. He suggested as I had once thought that it could be the alternator. He told me he would boost me and l would make it to the border (I was 30km from the border, and had to go another 80km into Michigan). I took my chances and I managed to drive it all the way to my final destination which goes against the alternator theory. The following are things that happening which may or may not be related :

1. The DRL light comes on sometimes and makes a buzzing sound behind the glove box, the right side drl does not come on. After a while however, the buzzing goes away and the light comes on.

2. I had bought a car charger for my cell phone the day before all of this mess started. (I know it draws very little power, but I'm pulling at straws here, my car is possessed ! )

Any ideas ?

Thanks in advance.

 

Sounds like the alternator is going out. Often they work intermittently for a while before dying completely. Measure the voltage at the battery with the engine running but everything else off. If it is less than 14 volts, alternator is probably bad.

The other possibility is loose connections at the battery or the ground wires.