Honda Car Forum

Hi, I bought a used car. A Honda Civic 98 with 123K. It was running fine. But yesterday I took it 400 miles away gave it a 2 hours rest and got back again. On the way back, all of a sudden, the car wouldn't speed up above 65mp/h. I hit on the gas, revs doesn't go up nor the speed. If its down hill then only the speed goes up. After a while, I realized that the front right tyre was flat. I had no option so I drove it some 60 miles like that. What could be the problem? Is the transmission gone? Another thing, just before that I had filled gas at some weird gas station.















Umm, theres a faint chance that I may have mistakenly added diesel. But does diesel has grade like, regular, premium and stuff?! As far as I can remember, I added the premium(the most expensive one) and the station read gasoline. Is it bad to mix different grades?

there are any number of things that can cause the problems you have, including the possibility that you mention of getting a tank of bad gas or the possibility that you mixed diesel oil with the gas in your car.































It sounds as though you have an issue such as a restricted exhaust system or a restricted catalytic converter. that would result in a tremendous loss of power and act like a governor on the engine as you would not be able to get all of the spent exhaust gas out of the engine.































you don't mention if there were any signs of misfires such as bucking or hesitating. A general loss of power then is usually exhaust or fuel related. Any ignition problem will usually result in a misfire. the exception may be an ignition coil that has a weak output but that usually doesn't stop the rpm from going higher.































also, you don't mention if the problem still exists or if it only happend on the drive back.































my feeling is the problem is temperature related and exhaust related. I'd suspect a restricted exhaust system if you hear an above average roar from the eninge and fuel if you don't. definetly fuel if the car starts today and drives in a similar low power mode when the engine and exhaust are cold.































hope that helps