Car trouble...Honda Civic

[Chuck Wintle]

My, usually very reliable, Honda Civic has decided to act up. last week when cold starting it would stall when shifted to drive. Did that a few times and finally went but the motor was stumbling and not taking the gas. put some gasline antifreeze and it seemed to run better but this morning proved me wrong. I guess I need a new car.

[George Bokros]

How many miles on the car? You may have dirty fuel injectors, a clogged fuel filter. How much mileage on the plugs? If you have Autozone or Advance Auto Parts in Canada they will pull the computer codes for free or maybe some Canadian AP store will pull the codes for you.

[Joe Tilson]

Chuck,
This is probably caused from water in your gas. I had the same problems with the smaller engines. All were 4 cylinder vehicles. A very good mechanic told me to put water remover in the tank every so often. It worked very well. I wish you the best with this problem.

[Jason Roehl]

First, if the car is a 1996 or newer model, get a code reader on it. Not all stored trouble codes will turn on the check engine/malfunction indicator/service engine soon light. Older models may also have some form of code reading also, but they tend to be a bit more specialized or have a trick to them that is model-specific.

Second, check your fuel. Heck, I'd probably just add some moisture-remover additive (such as HEET) as a precaution. Cold temperature months are a good time for moisture to collect in the gas tank.

Third, run some injector cleaner through your gas tank, or give it a SeaFoam treatment (follow directions on the can--put some in the tank, and some slowly through a vacuum hose, shut off, let sit for 30 min, restart). Kerosene works pretty well as injector cleaner, too.

Fourth, consider a tune-up. Plugs, plug wires, air filter, fuel filter, etc.

A lot of people don't like to work on cars with "all that new-fangled electronic junk", but I find they're mostly easier. They still need air, fuel and spark, plus much of the time, the computer can tell you what's wrong, if you take the time to learn to listen to it.

[Chuck Wintle]

The car is headed to the garage this evening. It really too cold to work on it outside, right now -22C. Its a 2000 so the car does not owe me very much.

[Rick Christopherson]

If its only acting up when cold, clean the EGR valve. You can probably do it a just a few minutes.

minituneup2.jpg

[Dan Hintz]

Another potential trouble spot is the TPS (throttle position sensor). It's a $0.25 rheostat, but you don't realize how much your ECU needs the info received from it until it gets flaky. Of course, the part is only $0.25, but you have to replace the entire throttle body assembly because it's considered an emissions item (which cost me $800 on my S2000 about 10 years ago ). Car ran fine when driving, but it just couldn't hold idle on its own.

[Chuck Wintle]

I just got home from work and the car ran flawlessly on the home trip. Maybe because the sun was shining on it and it warmed up slightly?

[Anthony Whitesell]

I will assume it is an automatic transmission. What happens if you shift from park to neutral (instead of shifting directly to drive)?

On mornings like today, I like to put my standard transmission in neutral and let the clutch out while I go through my getting in the car routine. I find the clutch and engine are much happier when they have had a chance to wake up before going to work.

[julian abram]

Camshaft/crankshaft sensors can cause intermittent problems such as this when they start failing, just a thought.

[Phil Thien]

I just got home from work and the car ran flawlessly on the home trip. Maybe because the sun was shining on it and it warmed up slightly?

Spark plug wires.