Hi,

I have a 95 Honda Accord that started acting up a couple days ago.

It started with the car sputtering like it had missed or something.
The check engine light came on and stayed on for a while. I decided to
take it to a mechanic. When I started it back up, the check engine
light was out, and it did fine for about 3 miles or so. It sputtered
again, the check engine light came back on, and as I was pulling into
the parking lot the engine died.

The mechanic didn't get any faults out of the computer. I think that
was because by the time he got to it and cranked it back up the fault
had been reset.

They told me I needed a new battery and new battery cables because the
battery was sending erroneous signals to the computer, "garbage in,
garbage out" was the quote. The valve cover was leaking oil, so they
replaced the valve cover, plugs, distributor cap and rotor, and the
ignition cables.

After I left it was still doing the same thing. I've since replaced
the battery, cleaned the brackets with baking soda, and removed as
much corrosion as possible from the cables.

The voltages look good at the terminals and across the wires at the
bracket base. Further driving tests revealed that once whatever fault
occurs and brings the check engine light on, the RPM drops below
normal. With the AC running the load is too much and the car dies.
With the AC off it'll keep running, but idle RPM drops off to about
200. Accelerations with the check engine light on causes the car to
sputter and lurch.

Short of changing out all the batter cables altogether, I don't know
what to do next. It seems like the cables are sufficient, but I don't
know if there's some kind of a fault in a ground cable, etc. The fault
seems electrical since the engine runs fine, but idles low after the
fault occurs.

Anybody have any experience with this kind of thing?