Honda Car Forum

up. then as time goes? bye it starts a little slower then a bout 1 month later the battery died, car just would'nt start, cant figure out whats draining the battery...

sounds like an alternater problem,for some reason the alternator is not recharging your battery when you drive it.start the car and unhook one of your battery cables,if the car dies its the alternator

alternator isn't recharging the battery. could be a bad alternator, a bad cable. autoparts store can test the alternator for you for no charge (autozone, autoparts warehouse, etc).

dont ever disconnect the batt cable on a computerized car with the engine running. you will put a voltage surge, or spike thru every electrical module on the car that it cant handle. this means expensive repairs. it does sound to me like the alternater is weak. get it tested professionally.

gearhead knows his stuff, you will damage parts of the computer, your problem should be your alternator

Considering this is an 88 Civic the answer really would depend on how much time is the car sitting between times of when you put a new battery in the car to the time it has slow starting. If it is not sitting and you are using the car regularly I would first check the brake lights make sure those are OFF when you are not in the car, make sure all doors are shuting properly, Make sure that the radio is not running while the car is off. I had one car that the radio would not shut off properly and was draining the battery, and Check all lights(trunk, dome,&doors.). Unless the Battery light is on then there would not be a problem with the Alt. Especially that considering that you can drive it without the battery dying while driving that is another sign it's not the Alt.If the car is sitting a while between drives then that can drain the battery on it's own just due to the fact that the car is old and needs to be at least started and run for 15-20 min. regularly so if it's sitting for a long time and then starts slow you may want to try starting it once a week and just let it run for a little while to let the Alt. charge the battery a little bit.

you most likely need a new alternator