so my girlfriend has a 1998 Honda accord with 240,000 miles, and shes having this problem where the engine simply shuts off.. sometimes it starts right back up, sometimes not.. sometimes it stays running all day, sometimes it only runs for another 5 seconds..

i talked to a mechanic (one i trust whole heartedly to work on anything and everything), and he says that accords are known for ignition failures, as well as the 'main relay' going out under the dash..

so first off, i replaced the main relay with one i acquired form a salvage yard.. issue hasn't went away..

i hopped on this forum, and found that this particular 1998 accord had a recall on it's ignition in 2002.. however when i contacted the dealer they told me that the recall had already been fulfilled back in 2002, and that they would only replace the ignition once free of charge...

is it common for this switch to fail even after being replaced via recall? With the car having 240,000 miles on it, it would be safe to say that many of those miles have been put on since the ignition was replaced in 2002.

i read on the forum that jiggling the key can sometimes make the car shut off.. while i haven't got it to shut off by jiggling the key myself.. i had her take her heavy danglie keyring off the key (so its just the main key) and the car has run fine with no shut offs for 2 days.

 

welcome to the forum, Ask your trusted mech to check the dist/coil/ for conditon. They sometimes start to fail, they discolor or short out. Continue to check to see if the heavy key chain removal has helped.

 

ok, so shes been running without the danglie chain for about a week now.. about 60-75% of the time the car ran with no problems what-so-ever, but there were 2 instances where she called me worried 'she wasn't going to make it home'...

again, i cannot make the car shut off by simply jiggling the key... and while i can certainly check for continuity through the ignition switch, with it being intermittent i'm sure it will check fine (meaning it will show continuity until it fails intermittently)

i can check the resistance of the coil tomorrow.. i've read that primary resistance should be .63 to .77 and secondary should be 12.8 to 19.2 kohms.. My question about that is: with this being such a intermittent problem, would the resistance of the coil tell me anything?? or would taking the cover off the coil and visually examining it's condition be a more practical evaluation??

also i'm wondering (because this would be a common problem with an american car) if the fuel pump commonly fail on hondas..

thanks again

 

you are correct to remove the cover and check for the spring to be there . The fuel pump on the hondas usually work or not work. Have not heard or read on them being intermittent so far. Also check for poor connections at the firewall or major electrical connections.

 

i really appreciate the help acmech52..

i pulled the cap off today.. the primary resistance is .9 ohms and it should be between .44 and .55 (i was incorrect about what the resistance should be as this is a vtec motor, something i wasn't aware of).. the secondary resistance passed ..

nothing looked burned under the cap, but as the main resistance failed, i figure it should be replaced anyway

also, the points in the distributor cap were pretty arced up and corroded.. i cleaned the corrosion off the points and found that the points were pitted... can you purchase a new cap and rotor?

thanks again

 

I ordered a new coil, distributor cap, and rotor yesterday, but when i got home, the new coil had the same resistance as the one that was on there.. so i took it back

i put new cap and rotor in the distributor, and figured she can run it like that for a while to see if it helped..

if not, am i headed back to the ignition switch?

 

just a heads up, have noticed on many forums that a rebuilt distributor with the same used coil will fail soon after installation. One member here replace the distributor 3 times due to coil failure ( info only) After you change the parts, monitor the distributor to see if this did the fix. Normally if you pull the coil out and look at it good, you may find a discoloration on the side. ( indicates its starting to burn/fail)