I have a 1989 Honda Civic lx sedan pretty sure its the 1.6 engine. The trouble I'm having started this morning. Car has been running great for the past month no problems at all. Go to start the car this morning and nothing electrical on the vehicle seems to be working. No lights or anything. So I look through the fuses and find that my 50A and 40A bent fuses in the engine bay fuse box have blown. After some research on google it appears that the two fuses control interior fuse box and exterior lights. Ok so solved the mystery. So I replace the 2 fuses and the car starts right up. I drive it to and from the grocery store about 3 miles from my house no problem. So I think my problem is fixed. Well 3 hours later, my wife and I drive about 30 minutes down the road to pick her Volkswagen up from the dealership (its a new car so I like to let the dealership do all the servicing). We park the Honda in the parking lot and go inside to pay for the servicing. Ok so 10 minutes later I go to start the Honda back up so I can drive home. Well same problem now. Everything is completely dead again. So I go talk to the service guys inside and they bring out a jump start kit. Hook it up to the car and it starts like there was never a problem. So I drive it back home and now its sitting in the driveway dead again. Any suggestions on what to check? I'm thinking maybe the battery and am going to have it checked in the morning at Autozone, but I wanted to get some other opinions.

 

Not worth the two cents .. but, ....

Sounds like an intermittent short circuit
The first time, it shorted, it blew out the two fuses.
Hefty 50 amp and 40 amp fuses.

Must have been quite a dead short for those fuses to blow.
Something made them blow!
Replaced fuses and car runs again.
So, now it isn't shorted completely
Run car. Happens again. Jump start.
There is still a drain on electrical system

Am suspecting wiring issue.
Do you have any rodents or small animal issues in you neighborhood?
Possibly chewed the wiring?

 

 

Thanks for the replys. I bought a new battery and a battery charger/tester .The old battery is about 2 years old but when i put it on the tester it recharges to %100 and seems to hold a charge. After some more digging through the wires it seems that the previous owner removed the sound system he had installed but left the fuse and connector hooked up to the battery. I removed that stuff and it seems to be running fine again so maybe the fuse for the sound system was slowly leaching power and then it just finally drained the battery to the point of no power.

 

Can't drain power from a battery unless there is a circuit
In other words, there has to be power and ground to complete the circuit
So, don't understand how the fuse would cause the issue??

Hope the new battery is the final fix for this issue.