Honda Car Forum

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?

| The mechanic didn't get any faults out of the computer.
http://www.autozone.com/N,311791/ini...cleSelect4.htm
can tell you how to extract & interpret error code

| battery was sending erroneous signals to the computer
impossible

| With the AC running the load is too much and the car dies.
car cannot die, engine can stall, chk EACV

| idle RPM drops off to about 200
incr idle rpm

"Jamey Shuemaker" <cantankeris@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1179021666.464013.15970@e51g2000hsg.googlegro ups.com...
> 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?
>
>

It could be the battery - I had that happen in a Nissan once - but I'd think
you'd have at least occasional trouble cranking the engine. If the battery
isn't so new as to be valuable replacement sounds like a good place to
start. Alternatively, if the battery isn't near replacement time now maybe
you have another car you can swap batteries with. Finally, a digital
voltmeter to measure AC across the battery terminals when it is misbehaving
will tell the story. Caveat: a bad alternator gives the same indications,
and an oscilloscope is the only certain way to sort that out. Normally bad
alternators produce fairly steady AC voltage while bad batteries may (but
not always) jump around.

The failure as I had it was an intermittent internal connection in the
battery. The car started okay most of the time but ran very rich, idled very
low and had all sorts of other problems. There was never any code stored
because the ripple from the alternator continuously reset the computer. The
new battery fixed it right away.

Mike

"Michael Pardee" <michaeltnull@cybertrails.com> wrote in message
news:maudnQN17Pc0YvrbnZ2dnUVZ_tGvnZ2d@sedona.net.. .
> "Jamey Shuemaker" <cantankeris@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:1179021666.464013.15970@e51g2000hsg.googlegro ups.com...
>> 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?
>>
>>
>
> It could be the battery - I had that happen in a Nissan once - but I'd
> think you'd have at least occasional trouble cranking the engine. If the
> battery isn't so new as to be valuable replacement sounds like a good
> place to start. Alternatively, if the battery isn't near replacement time
> now maybe you have another car you can swap batteries with. Finally, a
> digital voltmeter to measure AC across the battery terminals when it is
> misbehaving will tell the story. Caveat: a bad alternator gives the same
> indications, and an oscilloscope is the only certain way to sort that out.
> Normally bad alternators produce fairly steady AC voltage while bad
> batteries may (but not always) jump around.
>
> The failure as I had it was an intermittent internal connection in the
> battery. The car started okay most of the time but ran very rich, idled
> very low and had all sorts of other problems. There was never any code
> stored because the ripple from the alternator continuously reset the
> computer. The new battery fixed it right away.
>
> Mike

Oops - missed the part where you replaced the battery already.