Honda Civic and Accord Battery-Alternator-Starter

[Stefan]

Hi Eric The Car Guy:

Ordinarily I write about one car problem, but since the road to hell is full of good intentions, now two cars have problems.

Where it started:
Honda Accord 1997 Automatic: this is driven by my parent and they have reported some issues with starting the car. I didn’t get many details, I only know that there was a point at which wiggling the battery connectors helped start the car and then at one the car doesn’t want to start. There are lights lighting up on the dash, but no cranking.

Where it continued:
Honda Civic 2004 Manual: driven by me and visiting my parents to help solve the issue. The first thought was that the battery may have run out of charge, but a boost from my car didn’t do anything. In order to eliminate batter issues I hooked up the Accord battery to the Civic and tried starting it. After an initial crank, only the lights in the dashboard were lit. After hooking the Civic battery, no crack, but dash is lit up (gas gauges and coolant temp gauges also went up to the level when I arrived).

Diagnostics:
At this point, I decided to focus on the Civic. I checked a few fuses – the main battery one, the ignition coil one, turned on all the lights in the car – everything worked. Just no cranking. I’ve read about hot-wiring the Solenoid terminal of the starter to the + terminal of the battery to see if it cranks. I tried that and nothing (btw, car was in neutral to prevent any movement). At this point my brother comes to the rescue. Since the Civic is manual, we decided to push it in the parking lot to see if it will start and it did. So all of this lead me to believe that it is a starter issue.

The questions:
– Does this sound like a starter issue? Are there other tests that can be done to confirm it?
– Did the Accord battery caused that? I’ve read about overcharged batteries so I wondered if there’s a bigger issue with the Accord that causes an overcharged battery that caused the Accord starter to fry… (just a thought)…
– On the Accord, what do I need to check to ensure everything works to spec? Should I automatically assume that I need to replace the alternator, battery, and starter? It is a little strange that two starters may have ‘died’ in short amount of time and the only link is the battery.

and of course, if you have other suggestions, I’m open to them.

Topic

[college man]

see if this link helps.

https://www.ericthecarguy.com/faq/solving-automotive-no-start-problems

[Stefan]

CIVIC UPDATE #1

So it is a starter issue (for now). Considering that I just replaced the battery 2 months ago and car was working fine on the way back yesterday (after being started with a push), I decided to remove the starter. The procedure was straight forward and then I decided to wire the starter to the battery bypassing all the ignition components.

I hooked up negative to the body of the starter and then tried the positive on the solenoid and the motor. No response from solenoid; no response from motor. I also checked the connection to the starter brushes. Even hooked up the positive to the wire brushes. Again no response. so i can safely say that I narrowed down the culprit; Next step is getting new starter; making a quick test, and installing it. If the car doesn’t start then, then I have additional issues.

ACCORD UPDATE: none so far. I suspect it’s the same starter issue, but i will tackle the car once I get the civic up and running. And purchase better tool to diagnose electrical problems – that way I can check if anything else is going on aside from the starter.

[college man]

[quote=”ScorpionFiko” post=181928]CIVIC UPDATE #1

So it is a starter issue (for now). Considering that I just replaced the battery 2 months ago and car was working fine on the way back yesterday (after being started with a push), I decided to remove the starter. The procedure was straight forward and then I decided to wire the starter to the battery bypassing all the ignition components.

I hooked up negative to the body of the starter and then tried the positive on the solenoid and the motor. No response from solenoid; no response from motor. I also checked the connection to the starter brushes. Even hooked up the positive to the wire brushes. Again no response. so i can safely say that I narrowed down the culprit; Next step is getting new starter; making a quick test, and installing it. If the car doesn’t start then, then I have additional issues.

ACCORD UPDATE: none so far. I suspect it’s the same starter issue, but i will tackle the car once I get the civic up and running. And purchase better tool to diagnose electrical problems – that way I can check if anything else is going on aside from the starter.[/quote]

Sounds like a plan.

[Stefan]

CIVIC UPDATE #2:
After replacing the starter, the Civic works like a charm; it’s been a week of going to and back from work, grocery stores, etc and it started every time.

ACCORD UPDATE #1:
The accord seems to be a bit more problematic. I replaced the starter. I did the same direct connection to the battery and the old starter didn’t do a thing. The new starter works on direct connection. However, when I hook it up to the car, I’m only hearing a click, but no crank. Even after performing a battery boost from my car, no crank of the accord engine.

I started doing some electrical diagnostics with an analogue multimeter, which isn’t particularly accurate and has limited functions. For instance when I set the meter to 50 DC volt and touch the positive and negative cables of the battery, the meter rises to 33V (yeah I know). It does it on every single battery so I’m thinking the meter is either bad or not properly calibrated. Either way I took the readings and compared them to the Civic as a control test. Please note, I only tested voltages and here’s what I found:
– there is electricity flowing through the main cable of the starter. (33v on my meter). Civic shows the same
– when turning the ignition key, there is electricity flowing through the solenoid valve. (33V on the meter between solenoid valve and ground). Civic shows the same
– when turning the ignition key, there is electricity flowing through to the brushes cable although with quite the drop.(barely reaching 27V between the cable and a ground). I did a control test on my Civic, although there was still lower voltage, the drop wasn’t that much. On the Civic, that connection showed around 31V on the meter.
– I checked every single fuse and none appear to be burnt out.

Other observations are:
– when turning the ignition key, the dashboard lights up like a X-mas tree and more. For example in some cases the gear selection lights up the P and D4 simultaneously even though the car is only in Park. In other cases the speedometer arrow rises above 0 when the car hasn’t even started yet.

All in all, car doesn’t crank at all. So aside from giving it to a mechanic or the local wreckers, what do I need to do to get the car moving? How do I go about diagnosing the electrical problems and how do I find what is draining the power? What tools are ‘best’ for the job? My multimeter isn’t exactly good.

Thanks 🙂

[Stefan]

ACCORD UPDATE #2:

So I searched on the internet and one of the things to note was the negative cable and its connection to the transmission. And low and behold, the cable was broken.

I used my jumper cables to connect the negative of the battery to the body of the starter and vroooom – immediate start. Good thing the parts store is close by and I got myself a new cable.

so you may wonder how was I able to take my voltage readings earlier – well I was connecting them to the negative terminal of the battery so there was always a connection. Lesson learnt…

[college man]

Glad you found the issue. You may want to pick up a digital meter in case you need a meter again.

[Author]

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