I have an 88 Accord Lxi, automatic. For the past few months, the check engine light would come on sporadically after the engine was hot. I also had an oil leak, so I would put a quart or two of oil in and the light would go out for another month or two. I thought the two were interrelated. Eventually, smoke started coming out of my tailpipe and the check engine light would come on much more frequently, usually only after driving for a little while. I took it to a repair shop to fix the problem. They cleaned the oxygen sensor, replaced the spark plugs & wires, replaced the valve cover seal (for the oil leak) and said I was good to go. Needless to say, on the drive home, the check engine light came on again.

I actually found where the little LED trouble code light was at and watched it flash 9 times. They never actually checked the trouble code at the repair shop. I took it back to the shop, and according to Alldata, code 9 is the crank angle sensor. They advised me that my distributor assembly needed to be replaced. So I had them replace it yesterday and clear the trouble code, they took it for a test drive and declared it fully repaired. After spending nearly $500 to get it replaced, as I was driving away, not even a mile away, the check engine light came on again. I checked the LED light, and sure enough, it's still flashing 9 times. I promptly returned it and told them to actually fix it this time, now that I've spent nearly $800 total trying to fix the problem.

This is becoming very frustrating and I'm concerned that they're going to try to make me pay more. The Accord only has 94,000 miles on it, and it was well taken care of by the previous owners. The one thing that I have done that is probably hard on it, is move from Oregon down to the hot confines of Las Vegas. In Oregon, I never had any problems like what I'm having.

Is there anything that I can do or that the repair shop can do to actually fix the problem so I can be done with this? Thank you for your time and assistance!

 

if you put a new Honda distributor from the dealer not a rebuilt or aftermarket one. then the next move would be to check the plug on the harness where the distributor plugs in and the wires from the distributor to the ecu if those check ok then it might be the ecu as thats the last item left .

 

agreed...but i thought the cam position sensor (#4) is located in the dizzy? not the crank one?

 

Hmm, alright, I'll look into that, thank you stereo! For now, I'm kind of frustrated cause the repair shop took my car for a long test drive and the check engine light never came on. Not to mention, they couldn't find anything else wrong with it. I really don't want to take it anywhere else to dump more money into it. Do you think it'll make it the 1000 miles back to Oregon? I plan on driving home to Oregon next month and feel the car will make it, but am still a bit queasy about it.

 

theres no code 4 in the 86-89 accords they had a simple vacuum controlled advance system.

 

if thats your only code you should make it home as long as the other sensor left doesn't fail as without the (CYL) position sensor the computer is running on the (TDC) only so if that sensor fails then it won't run at all .