Starting Issues with 1994 Honda Civic
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Joined: Mar 2007
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From: Canada
Starting Issues with 1994 Honda Civic
We continue to have issues with our 1994 Honda Civic hatchback, with it starting and driving fine and then not starting even though it clearly wants to.
I made a thread on January 24 and since then a few things happened – when the car didn’t start, we did that CEL hack to read any error codes. But either the CEL goes out like normal or it stays on altogether LOL.
So we took our Honda to a mechanic to have it scanned. We told him on the phone and again when we dropped off the car that it’s been running on three cylinders the last three years without issue (we drive under 3,000KM per year). He didn’t bother telling us he didn’t have an OBD1 scanner, so we didn’t get our scan. Without asking us, he did a compression test, diagnosing what we knew, the three cylinders. He said our car needed a new engine for $3,000 and the three cylinders was the only issue. He could be right, but this guy doesn’t deal with older cars at all as it turns out.
We aren’t convinced yet that the only issue is the three cylinders, because its behavior is consistent. If you start the car after it hasn’t been on for at least an hour/90 minutes, it will start and run fine. If you try and start it in less than that amount of time, it will turn over and really want to start, but it won’t. If you wait, it will start. When this issue first started, we thought it was random, but it’s not. It’s as if we could drive it around the whole day and it would be fine as long as we didn’t turn off the engine.
We did diagnostics on the main relay and looked at the circuit board. Nothing seemed amiss to us nor to a couple of other people. We replaced it anyway just in case, but it didn’t help. We are waiting for a new engine coolant temperature sensor from Amazon, hoping that it might be the culprit.
Is there anything else anyone can think of that might be the cause of what I described? I just don’t get why running on three cylinders would suddenly cause this. We’re prepared to deal with the engine, but I’m hoping there are other options other than a brand-new engine for $3,000.
I made a thread on January 24 and since then a few things happened – when the car didn’t start, we did that CEL hack to read any error codes. But either the CEL goes out like normal or it stays on altogether LOL.
So we took our Honda to a mechanic to have it scanned. We told him on the phone and again when we dropped off the car that it’s been running on three cylinders the last three years without issue (we drive under 3,000KM per year). He didn’t bother telling us he didn’t have an OBD1 scanner, so we didn’t get our scan. Without asking us, he did a compression test, diagnosing what we knew, the three cylinders. He said our car needed a new engine for $3,000 and the three cylinders was the only issue. He could be right, but this guy doesn’t deal with older cars at all as it turns out.
We aren’t convinced yet that the only issue is the three cylinders, because its behavior is consistent. If you start the car after it hasn’t been on for at least an hour/90 minutes, it will start and run fine. If you try and start it in less than that amount of time, it will turn over and really want to start, but it won’t. If you wait, it will start. When this issue first started, we thought it was random, but it’s not. It’s as if we could drive it around the whole day and it would be fine as long as we didn’t turn off the engine.
We did diagnostics on the main relay and looked at the circuit board. Nothing seemed amiss to us nor to a couple of other people. We replaced it anyway just in case, but it didn’t help. We are waiting for a new engine coolant temperature sensor from Amazon, hoping that it might be the culprit.
Is there anything else anyone can think of that might be the cause of what I described? I just don’t get why running on three cylinders would suddenly cause this. We’re prepared to deal with the engine, but I’m hoping there are other options other than a brand-new engine for $3,000.
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