Hey all, I'm techinally a newbie but I've been registered for a while. The archives were very helpful in locating the source of a big 'ol overheating problem earlier this year. The mechanic got a good chuckle out of how far gone my head gasket was!

Anyway, here's the deal:

Over the past month it's been doing this "shuddering" thing when on the freeway. It's kind of hard to explain what it feels like. Say you are cruising on the freeway and you pump the gas three or four times very quickly. That's what it feels like, though not that severe. It's over really quick and then life goes on. The engine doesn't make any noticable revving, and I don't have a tachometer to monitor it. I haven't heard any ugly noises coming from the car. This only happened about three times in the past month.

Anyway, it was being funky on the way to school today, doing this shuddering thing about three times in the 10 miles or so I drove it and also doing it at stoplights, though much slower. It's an automatic, and it's changing gears fine. It feels a little funky from stops, but I'm not sure if that's because I was nursing it off the line.

Does anyone have any ideas as to what's up? FWIW the head gasket was replaced in May of this year, the timing belt, water pump, and tensioners were replaced in May of '04, and it feels like the a/c unit is dying again (this would be the third time). I have 161,000 on it. There has been plenty of gas in the tank every time I've had a problem (I never let it get lower than 2 gallons, but it was nearly full this morning). It's been through several changes of gas as well. For the time being I've been driving my mom's '02 EX because I'm scared to drive my Civic.

Thanks for any help.

 

Change the tranny fluid. Watch for shavings in the old fluid.

 

My mom took it in for me today while I was at school and had the tranny looked at (school is 60 miles away, see why I didn't want to drive with a trippin' car? lol...). They couldn't find any problems with the tranny and suggested that it's the injectors. They told me to run a few cycles of midgrade fuel through as well as an injector cleaner and keep an eye out for trembles and noises. They also changed the fluid while they were in there, as it was time for a change. No mention of flakes.

We'll see...got a 30 mile one-way drive tomorrow.

 

maybe the injectors were upgraded to like 310's or 440's. Then the FMU was removed but injectors were left. Or maybe the FMU is still installed?

 

^^^
lol
sounds like a pretty stock ride here. When was the last tune up? During the head gasket replacement? Anything new that has been done recently to the car?

 

Yup, it's bone stock. I'm saving all the fun for when I've saved up enough for a TSX

The last thing done was the head gasket in May. It hasn't been in for any tune ups, I'm afraid of what the mechanic will say-lol. The oil is changed on schedule though.

And the d*mn thing was doing it again today! I still might have some of the regular fuel floating around in there though--I just top it off every other day or so.

 

the fuel cleaner will do more than the midgrade fuel. and get chevron or shell. they have a little better additives than most stations.

 

161K and unknown last tune up?
LOL
airfilter once a year
fuel filter every 40K
spark plugs every 40K
transmission oil every 12K
plug wires/dizzy cap/rotor maybe around 40k wouldn't hurt.

Tune your baby up...most of it you can do yourself.

 

Ah, well, when you put it like that I guess I'm in not as bad of shape as I thought--air filter was replaced with the radiator hoses in February (forgot about that until just now), dunno about the fuel filter, sparkies were changed at the last oil change (about two months ago), and the rotor cap and goodies are probably stock. We got this car used in 2001.