 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
Car Forum / Honda Cars / June 200695 Honda Civic Hesitation/shaking when accelerating
1995 Honda Civic EX 1.6L VTEC 173,000 miles The other day I noticed that on the way to work in the morning, my car had a very hard time accelerating (felt like it was going to stall). It happened only one time though during that trip. I had driven about 2 miles and was departing from stop light. It drove fine the rest of the day. The same thing happened the next day at the exact same spot. Then the next day it did the same thing at the same spot but this time it didn't go away. It seems to idle ok most of the time. The skipping/hesitation/shaking occurs only when accelerating and at all gears, The check engine light has not come on at all. I replaced the fuel filter and that did nothing. I replaced the 02 sensor within the last two years, and when that went bad my check engine light came on and I noticed different syptoms. I don't think it is the 02 sensor. The TPS is getting the proper voltage. I have replaced the TPS in another car that had similar trouble and that fixed it. This TPS is much more difficult to replace and test because it is part of the throttle body. I don't think my car has a EGR valve so that can't be an issue. If it does have one, I don't know where it is. I have been using fuel injector cleaner. I recently had a leak in the radiator which caused my car to overheat. I stopped driving it as soon as I noticed it overheating. I used bars-leaks sealer to fix the leaks in the radiator and flushed the coolant system. no more leaks and the cooling system seems to be working fine now. I tried to get all the air out using the bleeder valve. I am mentioning this because It could be related. Another thing that might be related: a few months ago my car would not start after sitting out in heavy rain. this seems to happen every once in a while now. Usually only if it is a very heavy rain and even then not always. When that happens, I spray the wires/distributor/etc. with WD-40 and wait a few minutes. It usually starts after that. I don't know what to check next. I want to spend as little as possible. I don't know that much about cars, but I am willing to put some effort into this if it saves me money. I would appreciate any help I can get. Thanks, Jacob > 1995 Honda Civic EX 1.6L VTEC > 173,000 miles [quoted text clipped - 48 lines] > > Jacob my money's on an ignition lead/distributor cap problem - had something similar on mine recently. new plug leads, problem completely gone. ymmv, but check them out. Are the ignition wires, distributor cap and rotor OEM (= genuine Honda)? How old are they in miles and years? This sure leaps out at me. Some very good hints (and cheap ones) appear at http://tegger.com/hondafaq/startproblems.html To be complete: Is the oxygen sensor an OEM one? But I agree one should get a Check Engine Light for a bad O2 sensor given the severity of the symptoms. You are correct about the EGR system: Your Civic does not have one. What do you mean you "tried" to get all the air out? What did you do? The procedure for an air purge of your 95 Civic cooling system is free online at the manuals at Autozone.com and http://www.honda.co.uk/car/owner/workshop.html . This should cost you nothing in parts and just a bit of time, labor-wise. I would do it. The fan may take as long as 40 minutes to come on during this procedure, even on a warm day. > 1995 Honda Civic EX 1.6L VTEC > 173,000 miles [quoted text clipped - 75 lines] > > Jacob Thanks for the prompt response. As far as I know, the distributor cap, rotor, wires etc. are all the original parts. I don't remember the brand of the oxygen sensor. I just bought the cheapest one I could get. I flushed the radiator following the manual. I used the bleeder valve to let the air bubbles out until coolant came out in a steady stream. the heat was working, no strange idling, and the fan kicked on. So it seems like my next step would be to replace the leads and distributor cap...? is it possible to replace the rotor and/or coil without replacing the entire distributor. Should I consider replacing these as well or just try the wires and cap first? > Thanks for the prompt response. > [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > without replacing the entire distributor. Should I consider replacing > these as well or just try the wires and cap first? If the O2 sensor was the "cheapest one" you could get, I would consider that to be a likely suspect. Non-OEM O2 sensors are known for not working properly in Hondas. The distributor cap and rotor should be replaced for good measure too, and they don't cost much. I have had no problem with the 02 sensor. In fact, I drove with no 02 sensor for a while and my car did not behave as badly as it is now. I'm not ruling it out, but I hope it isnt. I couldn't change it by myself last time because it had become one with the manifold, and I don't have the tools to do that. Thanks for your advice. I will get a distributor cap and a rotor. How difficult is it to get the rotor off? I couldn't readily see how it disconnected when I looked at it. Do you think it would be wise to try replacing just the cap and rotor before buying the wires? I guess there is no harm in trying one thing at a time. looking at the distributor cap, I find it hard to believe that it is what's causing this problem. there is nothing to it. I cleaned it off with some contact cleaner. I feel like there is something else, like the coil. I dont know. > Thanks for the prompt response. > > As far as I know, the distributor cap, rotor, wires etc. > are all the > original parts. Then they are highly suspect. Routinely replacing these ignition parts (cap, rotor, wires, and plugs), along with a quick check of the timing, is a modern tune-up these days. Do read the part of Tegger's site I linked before! It has some quick and dirty checks you can do to see if the wires are bad. If you have a multimeter, check that the resistance of each wires is under 15k ohms. The distributor cap is a big deal. It transmits high current to the wires. An imperceptible crack in it, for one, will cause bad running etc. There are metal parts in it that conduct electricity and can easily become messed up. Newbies in particular are known to slap these one and bust off a main electrical conductor. Slide it on in a horizontal plane, carefully. > I don't remember the brand of the oxygen sensor. I > just bought the cheapest one I could get. That is something to consider then. High Tech Misfit is correct re the reports of non-OEM oxygen sensors. See http://home.earthlink.net/~honda.lioness/id9.html for three OEM online Honda parts places that will beat your local dealer's prices for OEM parts. Also, there's a link to a great OEM oxygen sensor online store. I've used all these places. Lately I'm using the Colorado store a lot, because over $50, shipping is 10% of the order. That's the best deal for shipping. > I flushed the radiator following the manual. I used the > bleeder valve [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > consider replacing > these as well or just try the wires and cap first? I would start with the wires, plugs, and cap. You should do the rotor at some point. Buy only OEM for these parts. (Note: I am frugal, but I learned the hard way that paying a little more up front for OEM distributor parts ensures the car drives longer.) Your owner's manual should recommend NGK plugs and maybe one or two other brands. Use the ones it recommends. Lots here like NGKs. No need to go platinum. It's very important to maintain these particular parts in near new condition, else the coil will be overloaded and its life, shortened. You certainly do not need to replace the whole distributor. Note that the "whole distributor" includes the following parts which are all ultimately replaced on older Hondas: Distributor Housing (bearing, among other things, often goes bad) Ignition Coil Igniter Cap Rotor Here's a nice exploded view of the distributor: http://www.hondaautomotiveparts.com/auto/jsp/mws/prddisplay.jsp?inputstate=5&cat cgry1=Civic&catcgry2=1995&catcgry3=4DR+LX&catcgry4=KA5MT&catcgry5=DISTRIBUTOR I just finished installing a new distributor cap and rotor. It made things worse. now my car idles poorly. You can hear sputtering coming from my tailpipe. It's a very erradic idle. up and down. It almost sounds like it's going to stall at some points. I have no trouble starting the car though. I made sure the cooling system was bled properly. I let my car idle for almost an hour. It took a long time for the fan to come on but it did twice. I did not see any arching when I looked at the wires while it was running in the dark. I tried checking the wires (which I did not yet replace) with an ohm meter. I don't know what the problem is, but I cannot get any continuity accross any of the wires. I put one lead in the spark plug end, making sure I had contact with metal, and I put the other lead on the distributor end touching metal, and nothing. The meter did nothing. I even stuck a screwdriver into the sparkplug end to make sure I was toughing the right park of metal. I don't see how the car would be running if there was no continuity at all, so i must be doing something wrong. I guess I could try replacing the wires, but I hate to keep throwing money at this and only making it worse. Thanks for your help though. I appreciate all the information. and I would appreciate anymore help you can provide me with. CORRECTION: I had the ohm meter on the 200k setting, which is why I could not get a reading. I didn't expect the resistance to be so high. I tested them on the 20k setting and got 7.0 ~ 10.0 for all the wires. I assume that is ok, since I read that below 25k is good. I wiggled them around and the resistance did not change much. Yes, those are good ohm readings for the wires. Did you put in new NGK plugs? If possible, check the timing. You need a timing light to do so. If these don't fix it, then the non-OEM O2 sensor is still a candidate for the cause of this, IMO. This is despite what you wrote about the car's performance without it, etc. A new, OEM one is about $70 total at the site I gave earlier. I know you don't buy that... > CORRECTION: I had the ohm meter on the 200k setting, > which is why I [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > I wiggled > them around and the resistance did not change much. > CORRECTION: I had the ohm meter on the 200k setting, which is why I > could not get a reading. I didn't expect the resistance to be so high. > I tested them on the 20k setting and got 7.0 ~ 10.0 for all the wires. > I assume that is ok, since I read that below 25k is good. I wiggled > them around and the resistance did not change much. doesn't mean much - it's /leakage/ that's the problem and the average ohm meter doesn't test that at all. at $34 for a new set of leads that need replacing periodically anyway, i'd replace them to eliminate them from the equation. > I just finished installing a new distributor cap and rotor. It made > things worse. now my car idles poorly. You can hear sputtering coming [quoted text clipped - 24 lines] > Thanks for your help though. I appreciate all the information. and I > would appreciate anymore help you can provide me with. ----------------------------------------- Hmmm. I wonder if you've been pursuing an untamed ornithoid. A Honda automatic will give the symptoms you described if the ATF is old, or has been replaced with non-Honda stuff. I'd do a drain-n-fill with Honda Z1 and see if it shapes up. Actually, at your mileage I'd do it at least twice,and I'd fill the coolant reservoir to the MAX, because the owner's manual says you should after any rad work. 'Curly' I spend most of my life chasing an untamed ornithoid. So your telling me that it could be my transmission that is causing this? My car has a manual transmission, if that makes a difference. I am also noticing the problem while my car is idling in neutral which leads me to believe that the transmission is not the culprit. My cooant resevoir is filled to the Max line. I did not yet change my spark plugs. Does anyone know if autozone will lend you a sparkplug socket? I have sparkplug sockets, but they arent log enough to reach these plugs. Is there a trick to this that I am not seeing? I suppose I will replace the wires, then the plugs, and then maybe go for the 02 sensor. I am avoind the 02, not because of the cost of the sensor itself, but because the last one cost $250 to put in becuase I couldn't do it and they had to retap it. This is getting expensive. I wonder what would have happened if I just took in into a shop? I have heard that a bad catalytic converter could cause this. Is there any reason for me to consider this? >I spend most of my life chasing an untamed ornithoid. > [quoted text clipped - 16 lines] > that I am > not seeing? All you need is a sufficiently long, 3/8-inch drive extension and one of the long 16 mm sockets. The extension is just a long rod with one end that fits into the ratchet and the other, into the socket. Very common. Autozone should sell these for a few dollars each. Or you can buy a whole extension set. You'll use these again, if you continue with your car repair work. Take a measurement to see how much extension you need. I think it's around ten inches. Harbor Freight is a tool store whose prices may beat Autozone. True Value and Sears also seem to beat or have very similar prices for tools compared to Autozone. > I suppose I will replace the wires, then the plugs, and > then maybe go > for the 02 sensor. I would start with the plugs, especially if they're over a couple years old. They will cost you about $15. Don't go cheap. Buy the NGK brand but non-platinum. For about the third time: Did you spray down the wires with misting water, with the car idling, to see how it responds, per Tegger's site? > I am avoind the 02, not because of the cost of the > sensor itself, but because the last one cost $250 to put > in becuase I > couldn't do it and they had to retap it. Since it's fairly freshly re-tapped, it should be easy to replace. You can borrow (for a fully refundable deposit) an O2 sensor wrench from Autozone and try it, first, if you like. PB Blaster is a penetrating oil that greatly helps free rusted parts, especially one's exposed to the heat and chemicals of exhaust. You might spray a little of this into the threaded region of the O2 sensor. Capillary action causes it to be sucked into the threads. Four bucks a ban at Wal-Mart. > This is getting expensive. I > wonder what would have happened if I just took in into a [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > this. Is there > any reason for me to consider this? The plugs are vital to the car's operation. You haven't said how old they are. You need to fathom why cars are regularly tuned up ( = new plugs, wires, distributor cap, rotor, air filter, fuel filter, timing check). If the plugs have been neglected, you bet this will cause running problems. > All you need is a sufficiently long, 3/8-inch drive > extension and one of the long 16 mm sockets. Correction: Of course if the socket is 1/2-inch drive, you'll need a 1/2-inch drive extension or an adapter set. Just describe what you're doing at Autozone, and they should take you right to the tools you'll need. I use my 3/8-inch drive tools much more than my 1/2-inch drive ones. I'd go with the 3/8-inch drive extension and the appropriate adapter(s). Plus the 3/8-inch drive tools are cheaper than 1/2-inch drive ones. > For about the third time: Did you spray down the wires with > misting water, with the car idling, to see how it responds, > per Tegger's site? I was going to try that test, but my car was idling so poorly already that I didn't think it would help me determine anything. > Since it's fairly freshly re-tapped, it should be easy to > replace. You can borrow (for a fully refundable deposit) an > O2 sensor wrench from Autozone and try it, first, if you > like. That is a good point. I will see if I can get it out and then consider replacing it. > The plugs are vital to the car's operation. You haven't said > how old they are. The plugs are very old I'm sure. They have not been replaced as long as I have owned the car (6 years). So that is something I should consider. The only thing I am unsure about is checking the timing. I do not have a timing light and have no idea how to use one. > The plugs are very old I'm sure. They have not been > replaced as long > as I have owned the car (6 years). So that is something I > should > consider. For the 95 Civic, the spark plugs are supposed to be replaced every two years or 30k miles, whichever comes first. Do you have an owner's manual? It has a maintenance schedule that, you should follow, assuming you want the car to last and be reliable. Or print out the maintenance schedules for the 95 at http://autozone.com/servlet/UiBroker?ForwardPage=/az/cds/en_us/0900823d/80/14/0c /b5/0900823d80140cb5.jsp > The only thing I am unsure about is checking the timing. > I do not have > a timing light and have no idea how to use one. Thanks. I will try some more thing and report my progress. > > For about the third time: Did you spray down the wires with > > misting water, with the car idling, to see how it responds, > > per Tegger's site? > > I was going to try that test, but my car was idling so poorly already > that I didn't think it would help me determine anything. It will if your car stalls out... > > Since it's fairly freshly re-tapped, it should be easy to > > replace. You can borrow (for a fully refundable deposit) an [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] > The only thing I am unsure about is checking the timing. I do not have > a timing light and have no idea how to use one. > > > For about the third time: Did you spray down the wires with > > > misting water, with the car idling, to see how it responds, [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > > It will if your car stalls out... True. I might try that before I replace the wires. Thanks. SYMPTOMS: car hesitating, shaking and misfiring on acceleration in every gear, smoothing out at higher RPM. the behavior worsened as the engine heated up. CAUSE: faulty (old and worn) spark plugs that were well past their expiration. SOLUTION: replace them with new ones. NOTES: well, it was the spark plugs. I don't feel bad about replacing the fuel filter, distributor cap and rotor as well though, and I still might replace the wires because these are all parts that needed replacing anyway. Plus, the problem with my car not starting after a heavy rain was not likely caused by bad spark plugs. I have yet so see if that still occurs. I did the water spray test though and I didn't notice a change. I also might need to set my idle speed. My car seems to be idling at lower RPM than it did before I changed the distributor cap and rotor. I would like to check the timing and do anything else that might increase my gas mileage. Thank you all so much for your help. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. > SYMPTOMS: car hesitating, shaking and misfiring on > acceleration in [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > needed > replacing anyway. Right on, Jacob! These will help your fuel mileage and the longevity of more expensive parts, like the ignition coil. > Plus, the problem with my car not starting after a > heavy rain was not likely caused by bad spark plugs. I wouldn't say that just yet. I have yet so see > if that still occurs. I did the water spray test though > and I didn't [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > anything else > that might increase my gas mileage. Ebay has good deals on timing lights. One does not need anything fancy. > Thank you all so much for your help. I can't tell you how > much I > appreciate it. Way to persist. Lesson learned is that many folks posting here are kinda newbies to automotive diagnosis and maintenance, so one should not assume something as basic as the plugs have been regularly changed. > SYMPTOMS: car hesitating, shaking and misfiring on acceleration in > every gear, smoothing out at higher RPM. the behavior worsened as the [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > Thank you all so much for your help. I can't tell you how much I > appreciate it. If there's no knock sensor just advance the timing a small bit each week until the engine sometimes buzzes or growls, then turn it back until it always runs quietly. Otherwise have a shop to it for a few dollars and let the knock sensor do the fine tuning itself. How do I determine if it has a knock sensor? I'm not sure if I should even mess with the timing. It's running ok. I just want to make sure it is running at it's best possible efficiency. It sometimes idles around 500 RPM. Seems low to me. > How do I determine if it has a knock sensor? > > I'm not sure if I should even mess with the timing. It's running ok. > I just want to make sure it is running at it's best possible > efficiency. It sometimes idles around 500 RPM. Seems low to me. You better not mess with it if you don't know whether or not it has a knock sensor. Have a shop do it. |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2008 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.