I have had this car for about 6 years. Shortly after we got it (6 years ago) we drove to California from Utah. In Reno when we stopped for gas (had been driving for a long time in the heat with AC blasting and temp gauge was near red when we stopped) and then went to start the car. Nothing, no clicking, no cranking, no nothing. Radio lights everything looks normal and powers up. Wait 1/2 hour it starts and we drive for 4 years w/o any starting trouble.
Last year in the Utah winters it would not crank if the car was cold and especially if it had sat for more than a day. Two factors seem to affect starting. Cold and length of time since last start. Now this year it is even worse. Sometimes it won't start at all even after holding key in start position for several minutes. Few weeks ago held in start and wife looked under hood and smoke was coming from starter. Not much but just a little bit. After 1/2 hour car started on first try. I had just verbally assaulted the vehicle but I think that is unrelated.
Have replaced starter, igniter, battery. In recent past.

In all the situations the same thing is happening. Turn key to start position and hold and the engine does not click or turn over. Summer is not a problem. We can't afford to move to Southern California where it does not get cold to fix this problem.

Help experts.

Could be the ignition switch, the solenoid, or some of the wiring. Replacing the battery and starter should have cleaned up some of the connections. The solenoid is a short, fat thing about 2'' long with 2 big terminals and a little one on one end. Turning the key to start sends power to small terminal. That in turn connects the large terminal connected to the battery to the other large one which is connected to the starter. The solenoid may be mounted on the fender or directly on the starter. Have you wife* hold the key in the start position. Check the small terminal with a test light or meter to see if it is hot. If not, the problem is somewhere between it and the key. Another way to test this is, with the car out of gear, to touch a screwdriver to the small terminal, and then swing it to touch the terminal connected to the battery. If the engine turns over, again the problem is in the switch or wiring. The next step, again, with the car out of gear, is to start with the screwdriver touching the big terminal connected to the starter and then the other large one. If that turns the engine over, the solenoid is bad. Be careful. Be very careful. Touching the battery terminal and the body or frame can cause big sparks welding the screwdriver fast. It can also burn holes in steel gas or brake lines. Not good. You will get sparks too, not good if too much gas or oil around.

If the engine still doesn't turn over, it is bad connections somewhere. Don't forget to check the far end of the battery ground cable.

Let me know what you find. If it still doesn't start, I will try to figure out why.

*They are more cooperative that way. Always let them pump the pedal when you bleed brakes. I have managed to get good help out of the same one for 36 years this way.

That was a fast response. The dealer has been no help in the matter. What's new. Thanks for the quick reply and I will let you know what happens next.

3 weeks ago I ran a large (8 gauge I think) ground wire from battery to frame as there is corrosion on the ground wire as it goes under the battery stand and into never never land. Just to eliminate that as a potential problem. That as you would have gueseed had no effect.

I live in LA and I have never had a problem. It has been raining non stop down pour for 17 days. Last night I went out and my car wouldn't start. It turns over but no fire. AAA came and got it started by adding fuel shaking it, I don't know what... He told me to keep it running, go get fuel cleaner and a full tank of gas. I did that and no problem. This morning I went out and same thing. It won't start. It turns over but that's as far as it goes. Tank is full. It's still raining.. What can it be? I have never had a problem. This is out of the blue. The last time I drove I (the night before last) and before all this happened it had never acted up or anything. It's a 92 with just under 85K. Please help

[email protected]

I had the same problem and I knew of many people who had the same problem. I'm almost 99% sure it's your main relay... Period.

Turned out it was from the rain//// weird huh? As soon as it stopped, everythiing was fine..

The rain will be back. You may want to look at the ignition system. Something may be drawing damp and shorting out when it is humid. If you have wires, a distributor cap, etc. you may want to replace them if they are over 5 years old. If you don't have them, it could be the coil packs.

When it rains, or when it's REALLY cold out or even after you've just driven it and you get back into start it again and you have to turn it over about 20 times in order for it to start. It's the main relay. It's fairly cheap to fix.
B

Last night its 25 degrees and windy @ 5:00 P.M. Car is dead cold. Won't start tried for 15 minutes of holding the key in start position.
Borrowed company truck to get home.
This morning car still won't start (shocker)
Had studmuffin (Shop Mechanic) determine power at starter solenoid when key is in start position and still won't crank. Hook remote starter up and it cranked and started. Put Starter solenoid wire back on and tried to start again and it starts fine. :mad:
WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOING ON.
One thing is for sure the starter is good, or bad, or its something else.
Please help.

Solenoids can be flaky. Sometimes a jump or in this case the remote starter may have just enough more voltage to activate a weak one. You need to try some of the tests I suggested in my original post, or just replace the solenoid.

Yeah deff the solenoid in my eyes, some will lock up and completely not work or some will work some of the time but then sometimes will not, I'd say just another solenoid and the problem it'll be gone. :D

Its not the solenoid or the starter. Both work just fine. Removed and tested twice. The problem has been chased back to the fuse box under the steering wheel left hand side and the key. Wires are good to this point. Can start by jumping wire from starter to this point. It's a black wire w/ a white tracer. May end up installing starter button under dash as this is getting exhaustive.

Intermittent electrical problems are a big pain. I fought them in my truck for over 20 years. Finally, a year ago I removed the fuse box, removed the riveted contacts, soldered the joints, and put it back together. It has run better the last year than it has since it was a few years old.

Replaced Starter & Problem Went Away. So Problem Was Starter Or Solenoid. They Are One Unit On This Car. For Some Reason Hot Wiring Was Able To Start The Car All This Time. Just Took A Wire From The + Lead On Starter To + On Battery And Started It That Way For Last Few Weeks.

May have been something loose or bad in it to prevent it from working right. Never really can tell unless you take it apart to find out. Could have been the solenoid not making contact inside or it just wasn't making good contact with the starter

Hey guys,
I am new this forum so I am not sure if I should have started a new thread or should just continue on this one as I am having a similar problem to this, but in my case the starter and the alternators have recently been replaced.

I have a 92 Honda accord lx with 141K on it. Recently I had filled fuel from Shell for the first time and after that I have been having a problem. This problem occurs randonmly or at least I have not been able to detect any particular pattern.

Some times when I go on a 5 - 20 minutes drive and the stop the car and after 5 minutes to 1 hr try turning on the car it will mostly start immediately without ony problems. But some times it will start and turn off in less than a 1 sec. At this point of time it seems that the fuel in the engine has got over. While my tank is full. This makes me feel that the fuel is not reaching the engine ( I don't know the exact terms of the car hence I am saying the engine). Then if I try to start the car again, it would go on crnaking but the car won't start as if there is no fuel in the car. At this point of time if I leave the car for few minutes like 20 or more and then try starting it again it would start immediately. Hence the mechnanic has not been able to detect the problem also. I am not sure if the heat is the problem as this mostly happens after a 5-20 minutes drive. Luckily I have not yet faced this problem on long drives or may be I have not been on long drives to notice the problem. Just to let you know the starter and the alternator have been recently replaced.

If any one has any idea how to solve or diagnose this problem please let me know

Ajay Bathija

Is your fuel pump in the gas tank? Years ago, it was a very common sight the first nice day of spring, cars stalled everywhere because the higher vapor pressure ''winter'' gas was vaporizing when the fuel pump tried to suck it to the engine. If you have an external fuel pump that is maybe running a little hot, combined with a tank of gas a little high in vapor pressure, could cause just what you are having.

Not sure of a fix if so. Maybe as the tank drops a little, fill up at your regular place. You might also check the fuel pump to see if it is running hot, and cooling it. People used to use damp rags, or even ice packs.

Once again, this seems like a usual symptom of a faulty (but easily repairable) Main Relay. Main Relay gives power to the fuel pump when you're starting the car. Problem is usually heat related. Main relay is inside the vehicle (not under the hood), and when it gets warm (after you're driving for a while), the relay heats up, and some of it's joints mysteriously stop conducting electricity. You can easily fix it by taking the relay out and resoldering it's joints. It has been the first fix I did myself on this car, some 6-7 months ago, and it worked flawlessly since then. Mechanics here in Croatia also knew nothing about the problem, and I found a fix on this forum.

Anyway, this is just a brief explanation, and for a more detailed description of the whole problem and how to solve it, check this link:
http://www.markl.f9.co.uk/howto/electrical/main-relay/main-relay.htm

Let us know how it goes!

Labman and CroCivic91:

Thanks for the quick response.

>>>>Is your fuel pump in the gas tank?

Labman, I am not sure of this, as I have not really ever worked on any car. I am originally from india and there the mechanics and the labor is so cheap that one really does not ever have to look under the hood and they almost always find out some round about solution for you. Even though I am very much interested in automobiles, I never looked under the hood.

I am very much interested in learning how the car works and there by learn how to take car and make the few possible repairs myself. I am not sure how to check where the fuel pump is. I had a look on the wesbite at the pics of the fuel pump, and will be looking inside me car if I can figure out where the fuel pump is.

CroCivic91:
I went through the link you provided and the symptoms they have given seem to be exact replica of the problem I have been facing recently. I will be trying to remove and repair the main relay next weekend and will let you'll know how things went. Hope I don't mess up the car more. :)

Thanks,
Ajay Bathija

Yesterday I was driving down a busy road and I came to a stop light and I felt my car start to chug and that usually means it's going to stall. So when I started going my car shut off, wheel locked up and I was on the side of the road. This happened a few months ago but I waited it out and it started up 10 minutes later and haven't had a problem until now. This time, that didn't work and I ended up having it towed to a pepboys. They are running a diagnostic on why it won't start. Should I ask about the relay? I really don't know that much about cars and I don't want to get screwed over. I've had my 91 Accord for 3 years now and I've replaced the alternator 2 times, the O2 sensor once and the exhaust system countless times. Any advice would be much appreciated.

If your fuel filter wasn't changed in a long time - it probably should get changed. Clogged fuel filter might cause your car to stall. Perhaps you have a problem with your igniter unit... check the post titled "Sparkless & In The Snow" in this forum, and search for an explanation I provided on how to check if your igniter unit is faulty. It might cause you starting problems. Check the link I provided in this thread about Main Relay and see if you have the same symptoms. If so, do give it a look.

Hold on, you said your wheel locked up. Steering wheel? If so, perhaps your UNIT_WHERE_YOU_PUT_YOUR_KEY_IN_TO_START_THE_CAR (whatever it's called) is faulty. Someone on here had a similar problem, and that unit was the problem in his case. Check a few threads back...

Hi all,

Im a new owner of a 91 civic w/ 146k miles... the first two weeks I drove it, it worked fine. Then the problems...

It would start to randomly stall at lights/stop signs and in traffic (no warning.. just stall). When I could feel it coming on, I could flutter the gas and would keep it going... then a few days later, I would be driving ~70mph or so, and the engine would stop with power.. I could downshift into 3rd and it would come back up and I could go to 4th and it would work OK...

After reading a bit, I thought it might the IACV, so I pulled it and cleaned it and put it back on... the dying during driving seemed to stop, but not the stalling at lights (and it had a fairly rough idle)... I went to get a fuel filter to do a replacement.. I relieved the pressure at the filter... HOLY COW the freaking banjo nuts on the filter are on there WAY too tight (I don't think the thing has been changed in sometime).. so I give up (couldnt even crack one of the banjo nuts loose with sockets... do I need to use an impact wrench?) and put the relif nut back on the special banjio nut and was on the way to a mechanci to help with the fuel filter replacement.. when it died a block from my house.. now the damn thing will crank,and eventually when it turns over, I can gun it for about 2-5 secs (with the obvious smell of rich, unburnt fuel emitting from the exhaust).. then it dies and acts flooded... I can let it sit for several hours, and it will turn over, but not for long...

I pulled the main fuel relay, desoldered and resoldered the connections... I guess it was working fine before, because that didn't change anything...

anyone with any suggestions? I just don't know enough about this car to start running around replacing everything.. any pointers.. GREATLY appreciated

Holy crap... that is a pretty usual thing that happens with hondas of that age, but everybody had a different fix for it.

For instance, cleaning the throttle body, and putting some grease in the gas cable helped my dying at the stop lights. Replacing the fuel filter cured the whole situation with rough idle. Changing the oxygen sensor smoothened out the ride.

Just a few quick questions... did you change your spark plugs, spark plug wires, distributor cap and rotor? It probably wouldn't be a bad idea.

Does your ECU throw any codes? Try checking for error codes and throw them here if you don't know what they mean. We might move on from there...

The excess gas can have 2 causes, too much gas or ignition problems. Too much gas can come from a leaking injector. Pull the throttle body injector or whole rail and see if the gas quits flowing as soon as the engine is shut off. If so, the injector is bad. Could be a bad sensor too.

I think it was the distributor.. thanks!

"Once again, this seems like a usual symptom of a faulty (but easily repairable) Main Relay. Main Relay gives power to the fuel pump when you're starting the car. Problem is usually heat related. Main relay is inside the vehicle (not under the hood), and when it gets warm (after you're driving for a while), the relay heats up, and some of it's joints mysteriously stop conducting electricity. You can easily fix it by taking the relay out and resoldering it's joints."

CroCivic91, thanks for the advice. It did work for me also.

When you have informed me about it, I planned to re-solder the main relay. However, due to personal problems did not get a chance to do it. Hence I was stuck with the same problem. In the evening when leaving work my car would just not start. My collegeu realized that those spark plugs were covered with oil. Hence we concluded that when ever the car does not start, it means that the spark plugs are covered in oil, after waiting for a few minutes, the oils drips down and then the car starts. Hence I replaced the valve cover gasket, the spark plugs, wires, distributor, and the rotor. I was just hoping that the problem is resolved. The next day I was again waiting in the parking lot for my car to start and it was confirmed that my diagnoses were wrong. The next weekend I tried searching the main relay (it is hidden behind the silver box). Since this was the first time in life I was working on the car, I was scared to touch anything, but finally got the main relay out, resoldered and back in place. And have never been waiting in the parking lot again for the car to cool down.

"Mechanics here in Croatia also knew nothing about the problem, and i found a fix on this forum."

You were absolutely correct on this. Even the guys in the part shop did not know about this. I went to check out the master relay, and the guy tried selling me the started instead. I checked my car with 4 mechanics and all came up with different answers and none were the master relay.

I am trying to make a site that you help people know about this problem and also how to repair. If you have any thing in particular I should put in there, I would highly appreciate your input. Since this was my first time working on the car, I did not take any pics, but in the future I will.

You can check out the link:
http://www.ajaybathija.ajayenterprise.com/honda_accord.htm

I will be starting another thread as I have a problem with my ABS. Hope this forum can help me resolve this issue also.

Thanks
Ajay Bathija

I'm so glad it helped you! Perhaps you might want to add this site I always give out to people when in need of main relay fixing - http://www.markl.f9.co.uk/howto/electrical/main-relay/main-relay.htm

My 98 accord has a similar problem. There is a loud, rapid clicking when the ignition is turned on but the engine won't turn over. The battery is fully charged and the connections are fine. Any suggestions? Thanks. Terry

Same thing happened to me today..
When I turned key to start, it made clicking noise and then like a power failure.. lights would pop and go once.. I couldn't get it to start.. had to jump start it.. it's a 90 accord lx M/T.. anybody have any suggestions.. could it be the main relay that has to be resoldering it?

Actually, I've had problems starting the car before.. my mechanic said something was wrong with the ignition switch, I think.. so he connected a wire from the starter motor and left it aside under my hood and said if it doesn't start.. turn the ignition on and leave car in manual to avoid hault and pop the hood and connect the other end of the wire to one of the battery terminals, now I did this several times and the car started this way, but now I can't remember which side I have to connect it to?. red or black?. because I think I remember tapping it to the red.. but then I was told it should be connected to black.. but I can quite tell it was the red because it has the rubber cover over it and I usually lift it and tap it there to start it.. anyways.. I didn't want to spend much money on the car to replace the parts.. but I had that funny clicking noise when trying to start it today after turning it off for a 10 second lift.. the radio and lights were working.. but I couldn't turn on the emergency signal at first.. it gave that same clicking noise.. and in the end I had to jump start it.. and after parking the car right away.. same problem happened, so I just left the car in the garage..

If anyone could help, I'd appreciate it

Terryg, Jeeva86:

The problem I had with my car seemed to be a little different than what both of you have described.

I am new to this forum and new to auto repairing and hence in this posting also I might not be able use the right terms to explain, I apologize for that, I am still learning :)

The problem I had was after driving for a few minutes the car would not start again. The engine would crank (I guess it is the same as engine would turn) but it would not pick it up and start.

What I have understood from the working so far is that since my main relay was faulty it would not supply power to the fuel pump. And hence the result would be the same as there is no gas in the car. I had checked up with a couple of mechanics, and they gave me various reasons and all different. In the end due to the Oil leak that I had, I replaced the oil gasket cover and tuned up the car also thereby chenged the distributor, the rotor, the cables and the plugs. But it did not make a difference.

Due to the way the car was responding I was down to three options.

1. For some reason the fuel pump is not getting power.
2. The fuel pump had gone bad
3. The fuel rails had gone bad.

And luckly it was the 1st case.

I hope this information was helpful to you. If not resolving the matter then at least in making sure that this is not the case.

Ajay Bathija.

Have a 91 honda civic car just stopped working at stop sign didn't want to start.got it started got it home son rocked the car and now it won't go in gear or start.

sherryh1967, perform the tests in the link below, if the car cranks but won't start:

https://www.askmehelpdesk.com/cars-trucks/faq-how-troubleshoot-repair-maintain-hondas-selected-other-vehicles-46563-2.html#post229012

Thanks I will try it