Noff

Hey everyone!

There are a number of very knowledgeable tech heads here on this forum and I have a question about what happened to me yesterday..

I have a 92 Integra LS w/ 200k+ miles. Runs great still with the exception of yesterday on the way home from work. It was the first snow of the year and in the middle of traffic, it just quit. I tried to restart it, but the starter motor was not engaging at all. I could hear the starter relay clicking and the radio and all powered things (sunroof, heater fan etc) worked fine. Some kind souls helped me push the thing out of traffic and while I was calling the gf to come get me I tried to restart it. Lo and behold, it started back up (maybe 5 mins after it quit). I proceeded to go to the grocery store and stopped for gas on the way home and all was well after shutting off the engine and restarting after finishing my shopping / pumping and paying for the gas. Being the first cold day (below freezing) of the year, I suspect the battery might be in need of replacement (only owned the car for a little over a year, so I dont know when it was last replaced), but it makes no sense to me that I had enough voltage to finally restart the car after about 5 mins. If anything it cooled down in the 5 mins that elapsed, lowering the voltage a little more.

Any other things to check? Since it was the night before thanksgiving I was not able to find any place that I could take the battery into to get a load test.... I am not very good at diagnosis anyway, but this has me stumped.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

slater442w30

Mine did the exact same sh#t to me in the middle of rush hour, twice, but nobody helped me push they just yelled and honked, but anyway mine is a 92 with 200,000 as well and it was having an erratic idle problem sometimes, it would come and go and the second time it died in traffic I was pissed off, and ran a diagnostic computer on the car at my brothers house, the throttle position sensor had gone bad and was working on and off, and when the car doesnt know how much gas it needs it cant run right. Yours might just be going bad but have a mechanic check it out and ask him to scan for check engine codes as they will not flash until hooked up to the machine (sucks I know) If the battery was the problem then it wouldnt have died while it was running, the alternator would have kept the car running. What you can do is fire up the car, then un-hook the negative battery terminal off the battery while it is running, if it dies then the alternator is bad, if it keeps running then the alternator is charging. Do this before taking it to the mechanic for a raping. And you cant buy a new tps (throttle position sensor) you have to buy the throttle body from acura to get this ($470.00) I bought a whole used throttle body with sensor off ebay for 25 bucks and my car runs great now and hasnt died in months. Hope this helps, good luck.

Noff

Thank you so much for the tips. This really gives me a starting point to start checking. I have an excellent mechanic, but I am NOT going to bother him over the holiday weekend. As long as my car runs for a few more days without troubles, he'll take care of me on Monday. I would just like to save him some of his time with the diagnosis part and tell him what to look at.

Come to think of it, the idle seemed a little low at the time. When it died, I was just about to throttle up after executing a right turn.

Mine did the exact same sh#t to me in the middle of rush hour, twice, but nobody helped me push they just yelled and honked


I guess that is one of the few benefits to living in the Midwest. I dont worry too much when things like this happen. Soon enough someone will stop by and make sure I'm ok and have help on the way.



Anyone have any more insights into this? Some simple or not so simple procedures to eliminate or point the finger at a particular part or assembly...?

This is why I love the internet and the excellent communities that they spawn. Within a few hours of my post (on a holiday no less) someone has already given me a great starting point.

Thank you Slater and I hope you had a great Thanksgiving!
Lemme guess - You are a fan of a certain Oldsmobile with a ram air option :-D

slater442w30

No problem, I dont like throwing money at mechanics if I can help it, so far I havent been to a shop yet in my life (knock on wood) and yes I have a few oldsmobiles laying around, my 70 442 clone is very fast with a 455 olds in it but I had to get the Acura to drive the 80 miles a day to work and back as
9 miles per gallon isnt funny when you are commuting, and the Acura is getting 32mpg. Have a good weekend and let us know what was wrong after the mechanic looks at it.

dubcac

Battery, alternator, ignition coil, igniter, etc.