Honda Car Forum

Every few days when I start my car, there is a loud noise and it only
lasts for about a second. It sounds like something could be
collaborating… I’m not sure. The sound resembles the noise when I
slide on ice and the ABS kicks in, that sort of loud grinding noise
and sounds like it is coming from the same place. I am unsure if it
has anything to do with that though. It only does this once when I
start the car in the morning, and won’t happen again 3-7 days later,
and doesn’t seem to be effected by where and how I drive.

When I do drive, I also hear a clicking noise when I go over large
bumps or cracks in the road. The clicking lasts for about 5-10 clicks.
It won’t happen every time either, just randomly. It has also started
to happen right before I come to a complete stop.

I have also noticed that when I start the car, and turn the lights on,
some of the lights on the dash won’t be on, and then a few seconds
later, they will pop back on. Other times, when I turn the lights on,
for about a second, none of the lights on the dash will be on, and
then they will all come on.

One last issue, when the car starts, sometimes the engine RPMs are
going really fast, and sometimes pulses up and down really fast. Other
times, it starts high and gradually goes to normal or it just starts
normal and sounds like nothing is wrong.

Does anyone have any advice or possible troubleshooting solutions to
the problems noted above?

Thanks

[UPDATE]

The weekend after I wrote this, my car failed to start at all (it was cold) which was fixed by filling the gas tank with a couple bottles of Heat and letting the car sit for a few days to let the weather clear up a bit. After I started driving again, all of my original problems started to come back one at a time each day. I’ve also been having an issue with the steering wheel that I forgot to include in my previous post. When I start the car in cold weather, it feels like the power steering has been disabled. Then after the car warms up, the problem goes away. Not really a big issue, but it seems that it would also do this when it wasn’t that cold outside, so maybe not the weather, not sure. It just seemed to happen more often in cold weather.

The moan that I hear at startup now happens more often, just about every other day. This is something that has been going on for a couple years now, but seems to happen more frequently after making it through a winter season. Once again, it only does this the first time I start the car in the morning, and then won’t happen again for a few days.

I’ll get in the car, turn key, engine turns, engine starts, then a half a second later is when it will make the moan sound and will only last for about a second, then I start to drive and everything seems to be fine and drives like nothing is wrong.

I am 90% sure that the moan is the same sound that the brakes/ABS make when I slide on ice and definitely sounds like it comes from the same place. The days that I would slide on ice, the sound wouldn’t happen in the mornings after. It seemed like each time I did slide, and heard the moan, it would reset the cycle and I wouldn’t hear the noise a few days later.

Any suggestions on troubleshooting or possible causes are always appreciated.

As I understand it the clicking is most likely the main relay. I was told in the past that if you turn your key to run it should click several times then after you start you car it should not click not anymore, however my car has been clicking like that since september and it still runs fine so maybe thats not the case.

The moan I'm not really sure about, only time I had anything like that happen was when I moved my power steering resivour to change my driver side headlight and fogrot to put it back before I closed my hood :P but seriously I don't know what would cause it.

The funny idle could be caused by a number of things such as your main relay, iacv, fuel filter, air filter, ignitor, or pretty much any other part of your ignition system. I'd guess ignitor if anything, but thats just a guess.