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My car won't start, starts then stalls, stalls a lot while driving, or just runs badly
you came from Master Index > Start/Running problems

Starting/stalling problems can be difficult to diagnose, since there can be many confounding variables, such as poor maintenance, and/or cheap aftermarket parts. With this in mind, I've decided to set up this page by listing symptoms, along with their most likely causes. There are two basic categories:

• Honda-specific starting/stalling issues
• Generic starting/stalling issues that are common to all cars, including Hondas.

• Power to the starter motor
• Air
• An ECU that is working properly   how to check...
• A timing belt that's not broken   how to check...
• Spark   how to check...
• Fuel delivery   how to check...
  

• If the lights do not dim at all as key is turned, then no power is getting to the starter. Cables/connections are dirty, loose, disconnected, frayed or broken.
• If the lights dim to nothing as key is turned, battery is low, and/or the cables are in poor condition, or the starter has excessively high internal resistance.
  
• If lights dim only slightly as key is turned, then starter is defective or worn (if it's turning very slowly).

• On a DRY day, start the car and warm it up so the idle is where it would normally be when warm. Get an old Windex sprayer bottle and fill it with  plain tap water. Now spray the wires from end to end until they're dripping. Any change in the engine's note?
  If the idle drops, those wires are toast.
• On a very WET day (we're assuming the car won't start, or starts hard), wipe off the wires end to end with dry paper towels and spray liberally with WD-40. Don't worry. WD-40 won't harm your wires. The "WD" stands for "Water Displacing". It was originally developed for exactly this sort of thing.
  If the car now starts, the wires are bad and need replacing.

• Replace them! With OEM (wires from the dealer) every four or five years.
  

Now THIS is one big, BIG, BIG subject, encompassing everything from running out of gas, to old plug wires, to failure to change the engine oil and other fluids, to use of cheap aftermarket parts.

I was going to use this section as a pulpit to excoriate those who would be so irreligious as to generally maintain their vehicle improperly, but thankfully for you I've successfully resisted that impulse.  I've limited my comments to those specific issues that prevent your car from going vroom when you need it to go vroom for you.

So...what sort of neglect/abuse makes your car not start or run?

• Letting your high-tension, or "secondary", ignition components get old.
  This is the #1 reason for starting problems. Old spark plug wires will leak current off to ground before the plugs, leading to hard starting, or no starting, especially in the wet. Inability of the system to correctly jump the spark plug gap will force inappropriate ground paths through other secondary ignition components, such as coils, rotors and spark plug insulators, destroying them as well. Old wires can also cause misfiring under load. Replace your wires, cap and rotor every four or five years. With OEM.
  
• Allowing the battery to go flat.
  Each time you leave your headlights on and drain the battery, it shortens its life dramatically. Draining the battery also puts great strain on the alternator as it attempts to recharge the battery once the car's going again. This strain will severely shorten the alternator's life. Alternators are meant to keep a good battery fully-charged. They are NOT trickle-chargers.
• Allowing the car to run out of gas.
  Each time this happens, the injectors and everything behind them develop a bit of gum. Eventually, that gum begins to interfere with proper delivery. Flooding is one result.
  
• Regularly letting the gas tank level get, and stay, low.
  Low fuel level means more air in your tank. More air means more water, as moisture is a part of the atmosphere. That moisture will condense in your tank, run into the gas, get picked up by the fuel pickup, and cause rust and scale in your fuel system, also interfering with proper fuel delivery. It can cause frozen or corroded fuel lines, frozen or corroded fuel pressure regulators, corroded injectors, and a no-start condition.  Dirt is not your fuel system's greatest enemy, water is. Fuel filters will NOT remove water!
  
• Aftermarket components.
  Oh, suddenly I hear objections from the audience! What's that you say? "Aftermarket parts are just as good, and cheaper than OEM", you say? Well yes, some of them are. I even have a couple of aftermarket parts on my own car. But the overwhelming majority of aftermarket parts, whether new or remanufactured, are of very much inferior quality to OEM, and can cause cascading failures of other components. There IS a reason why aftermarket is cheaper! Aftermarket ignition components are almost at par with aftermarket brake parts for causing problems. Do not use aftermarket ignition components.
  
• Inept, or incorrect, servicing.
  Remember item #1, about letting your high-tension parts get old? Well you can destroy your ignition even as you earnestly attempt to fix it. It's easy to do: just remove the plug wires, or even the entire distributor cap, then crank the engine over with the key. Your coil will be the first casualty, and your car will not run until it's replaced. Oops!

The Main Relay will click three times during the starting process. When problems arise, one of those clicks (usually the third) is missing, making those clicks a handy diagnostics tool.

If you consistently hear/feel all three clicks, the Relay is fine. DO NOT REPLACE IT.

• Turn ignition to ON (but not to START): Click 1
• Check Engine light goes off: Click 2
• You now turn the key to START: Click 3

Where is the PGM-FI Main Relay and what does it look like?
How does it work?
How does it break?
How can I test it?
How can I fix it? (1) (external link)
How can I fix it? (2)

Bad igniter  back to top of this page    back to Start/Running problems

Newer Hondas ('94 and up) are prone to ignition switch failure. Earlier cars are getting old enough that simple wear and age are enough to begin causing problems. If the switch is failing, you may not hear any clicks at all from the Main Relay, and you would mistakenly think it's that. Other symptoms are similar to those of a failing Main Relay. There was a recall on ignition switches for certain years (1997 and up).
Here is the TSB on that recall.

A giveaway for a bad ignition switch is the behavior of the dashboard warning lights when the car stalls, or when the key is first turned to "II". If the switch is bad, the oil, brake, charge and other warning lights will NOT come on. A quick-and-dirty test that is intended to point up a switch that's going bad is this: Turn the key to the start position. As soon as the starter starts to turn, let go of the key, allowing it to snap back to the run position. If the instrument warning lights go out as the switch rotates back, the switch is bad.

The ignition switch actually consists of two parts: 1) The lock cylinder, and 2) the ignition switch itself, installed at the opposite end from the key, and held by two small Phillips screws. The images here are from the factory manual and are for the '91 Integra, but will hopefully be close enough for reference on later vehicles that still have non-chipped keys. Here is a page from the factory manual, showing a diagram of the ignition switch.

Two warnings:

1. Make sure your "starting problem" isn't actually due to a worn key! Keys do wear, and when they do it can cause all sorts of odd problems that can be easily misdiagnosed as lock/switch problems. At the very least, it's a good idea to get a new key made from a good original master, or order a new one from the dealer before tearing your steering column apart.
2. A too-heavy keychain can cause the switch to rotate ever so slightly, just enough to kill the power. Try removing the ignition key from your keyring so there's nothing dangling, then see if the stalling still happens. 

The surest way is to take it off and pop it open.  The burned contacts are a

dead give away.  It is screwed to the back of the ignition key cylinder with

two small Phillips screws.  The other end of the cable plugs into the fuse

block. 

When it is starting to fail, the "run" contact will overheat and open,

causing the car to stall.  A usual symptom is the dash will also go dark

when it dies (no warning lights, no shift indicator, nothing).  Attempts to

restart usually result in the engine starting and running while you hold the

key in "start" and it immediately shuts down as soon as you release the key.

Wait five or ten minutes for the switch to cool down and it will start and

run normally until the "run" contacts overheat again.  The cycle gets more

frequent as time passes, until it just won't run at all.

Some people have reported they can get it to run for a while by holding the

key between "start" and "run" - try to find the sweet spot where it [the engine] keeps

running, but the starter doesn't.

• Turn the ignition key to II. The Check Engine comes on for two seconds (fuel pump will run for those two seconds).
• After two seconds it will go off.
• The light should thereafter stay OFF unless you move the key back to I or 0, then again to II.
• When you finally turn the key to III to engage the starter, and after the engine starts, the Check Engine light should STAY OFF.

Some suggest bending the plug's electrode so as to increase the gap to make the spark easier to see. This is OPTIONAL, but does help when attempting to see the spark in bright daylight. You don't have to increase the plug gap to see the spark, If you bend the gap so as to open it up (like in the picture) to make the spark easier to see in daylight, the spark will be more visible, but will also be yellower in color. If you see a yellow spark with the big gap, don't panic. The bigger the gap, the yellower the spark.

Now take your plug and install it into the nearest convenient plug wire, which has necessarily been disconnected from its normal plug. Touch the assembly to a convenient ground so the current has somewhere to go once it jumps the gap. Here I'm using a valve cover hold-down nut. If you do this with the engine running, you will receive shocks as you insert the new plug and hold it to the valve cover nut. Once you touch the plug to the nut, the shocks will stop. They hurt, but do no harm! Unless you have certain medical conditions, I guess.

Alternatively, if you wish not to use a spare spark plug or can't get hold of one where you are, you can simply hold the spark plug cable end close to an engine ground and have your helper crank the starter. (Don't worry; no damage will result from this short-term test of only a few seconds.) Hold the plug wire as close as you can to the hold-down nut or other grounded object, but make sure you're still able to see the spark's arc. The spark will have to jump a very large gap with this method (over an inch), so it won't be purply blue, but will be a deep yellow. If there's no spark at all, or it's intermittent, or red and very quiet, then you've got a spark that may be too weak to start the engine. A bad battery or starter can cause a weak spark. The starter ends up drawing so much current in an attempt to turn that there's not much left for the ignition system. The dome light test will help find that out. If you see the correct spark appearance, and you see it at all plug wires, then your spark is fine.

1. Pump operates;
2. Fuel passes through the pump check valve;
3. Fuel goes through lines to the filter;
4. Fuel passes through filter, past the pulsation damper into the fuel rail;
5. Fuel that's needed sprays through the injectors as the ECM operates them;
6. Excess fuel passes through the pressure regulator and is returned to the fuel tank;
7. Repeat from #1.

Pump: Is it running? When you first turn the key to II (ON), the ECM and Main Relay cause the pump to run for two seconds.  If you listen very carefully, you can hear it hum while the Check Engine light is on. A fuel pressure gauge will tell you for sure if the pump is generating correct pressure. It's plumbed into the service bolt hole that located on top of the fuel filter's outlet. If you haven't got a gauge, clean off the service bolt, loosen it one turn and see if fuel seeps out (have a rag handy). If it does, at least some fuel pressure's getting through the filter. But is it enough? Only a gauge will tell you for sure, but there are some things you can try further on in this article...

Pressure regulator: This device can freeze with water and plug up. Its spring can get weak, allowing too much fuel to return to the tank too quickly, presenting too little fuel pressure to the injectors. If all your previous checks turn up no problems, do two things: 1) Disconnect the return hose from the regulator, and place a length of spare fuel hose from the the regulator's outlet to a jar. Now crank. Is fuel shooting into the jar? Then the regulator is at least passing fuel. But is it passing enough? Step 2 will help determine... 2) If you suspect too low pressure, get a pair of pliers, and pinch the return hose shut with them. This will force injector pressure higher by preventing a weak regulator from bleeding off pressure.