I just got this car a month ago (99 civic EX) and after driving it for 2 weeks i went out to drive on a very cold morning and it wouldn't idle correctly (oh yeah Check Engine Light was on when i bought it, dealer said they checked it out and that it was nothing ... me=DUMBA$$) i figured it was just a problem with the cold start so i didn't worry about it too much. Well now (2 weeks later) I still have this problem however it now happens at all starts (as long as the car has been sitting for longer than 5 hours)and when i put it into gear it rocks back and forth when i drive for a little while and then bam! it catches and the car runs fine. However today when i started it up and was going to drive (with the usual stutter of driving for about 10 secs when i first put into gear) it did the the stutter way worse and the check engine light start blinking (what does that mean???) not knowing what it meant and realizing that it was really bad now, i immediately parked the car and borrowed a friends car to get to work.


I've taken the car to the Honda dealership and to a friend (well really a friend of a friend) whose a mechanic. The honda dealership told me that it was the Fuel Pressure Regulator and my friend told me that 99% of the time its not the fuel pressure regulator and that all i should do is run BG44K through a full tank of 91 octane gas. So i am about 1/4 of the way through the tank of BG44K and 91 octane gas and obviously its not helping unless the way it helps is by making it worse.


So i was just wondering if anyone has had any experience with a problem such as this and can offer me some assistance? ANY advice is wonderful because i am at a lost as to what to do?

the car is a 99 civic ex with 107k miles on it and i am not sure about what has been replaced and what hasn't

 

have you checked the check engine light code? you can do that with a obdII reader. that will help you find the root of the problem.

 

haven't done that yet ... i heard you can take it to autozone and they will read it for you ... is that true??

 

Yup!

Sounds like an o2 sensor or electrical issue to me. My Jetta would stutter and blink the CEL at me on an almost daily basis due to those reasons.. Just have Autozone pull the code, that'll give us a better idea as to what steps to recommend you take

 

Thanks!! i'll go get that done right after i get out of my last class ... i'll give you guys an update once i get the code ... thanks again for the help

 

Just got back from autozone ... pulled 6 codes, 3 of my cylinders are misfiring then their was a lean fuel mixture and one other. So i went ahead and bought spark plugs, wires, and distributor cap. haha so all i needed was some general maintenance

 

I just finished puting in the plugs, wires, distributor cap, rotor and also changed the oil. When i started it up the car to warm it up, so i could check the oil to see if it was at a good level and the engine started rocking as if it was not getting enough fuel. The car does run smoother now after the intilial cold start up. So it looks as if i'm back at square one again. I am planning on testing to see if the idle is still weird when i cold start it tommorw and also reset the check engine light. So if no rough idle and the check engine light doesn't come back on ... then looks like i fixed problem. Anybody got any ideas of what it could be now?

 

It is still doing it?

I would check your air intake sensor. Also try resetting the ecu. Disconnect your battery and let it sit over night.

 

those guys @ AZ are a bunch of morons. anyone can pull codes. hell...i can pull codes. it's what you do with the info after pulling the codes that really matters. if i had a $1 for everytime AZ said to replace plugs/wires because of a misfire code...i'd be a rich, rich man. looks like you might want to take it to a shop that does engine diagnostics.

 

It looks like to fix this problem you are gonna need someone that has a good knowledge of PCM diagnostics. Check for spark at the three cylinders that are misfiring. It is either misfiring b/c you have no spark or no fuel. If it turns out that you have spark at all your cylinders, it could be possible that the fuel injectors are clogged or something else is causing them no to fire. If you hook up a scan tool, you can check the injector pulse width, this will tell you if the computer is sending each injector a signal to fire. The reason that i don't think that its an intake sensor is b/c the problem would be present at all 4 cylinders. Since one of the cylinders is still firing, the PCM must be sending all the cylinders the same signal to fire. I don't think that the PCM sends each cylinder a different signal to fire (unless its sequential, but it should still have the same pulse width) since there is only one intake sensor for all the cylinders (and one O2 sensor for all the cylinders). I wouldn't trust the guys at autozone since they want to sell you stuff. New plugs, wires, and cap + rotor never hurts, but its kind of a waste of money if it isn't needed.