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Up for debate is an ’03 Acura CL Type S, ~170k miles. Bought it a couple years ago after crashing my previous car. Seemed good at the time; if I’d know then what I know now… Well, she a great car when she behaves. Purchased with 114K miles; at almost a year to the day at 132k miles, tranny went. So she’s got a rebuilt one of those under the hood. Considering adding an external trans cooler to extend the life of this trans, but that’s a thread for another day.
I read the “common problems” thread ETCG wrote… wish I hadn’t, ’cause now all that stuff going to be on my mind and will probably start failing, but so far things have mostly been good besides the crap tranny. [Brakes are pulsing and I may get to them in the next couple months; driver’s seat heater died – don’t know if I’ll get to that, only if I find a replacement seat cover; Bloze stereo has been addressed – though ongoing to finish.]Back to the actual point! Every couple of months, she just dies on me. Could be while I’m driving – cruising @ 50-60 mph and the engine shuts off, electrical still good – or I come out to start her and she refuses to. On most occasions if I wait 5-10 minutes, I’ll try restarting and she’ll roar back to life as if nothing was the matter. One time a couple weeks back I was trying to leave for work, and she wouldn’t start for nearly an hour. That was the longest it ever took, but after that didn’t have an issue until a couple days ago. Has never thrown a relevant code, but I do have a persistent EVAP valve failure code, and wonder if that could be related. When she does this and finally restarts, I sometimes have had the VCS, Check Engine(which was already on, but guessing it would’ve been thrown?) and Slip warning light lit solid until the next restart. Then everything’s gravy for anywhere from 3 weeks to 6 months.
I welcome anyone’s thoughts on this.
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JD
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The EVAP system is also known as vacum system. This was design as and antipollution system that reuse the fully 100% unburned fuel from the engine and remix It with the fresh fuel of the gas tank. The ECU (Engine Control Unit) take care how mush new gas is added to the mix by using the O2 sensor as result combustion sensor too.
That been said, when you have a leak in the EVAP system, you might smell fuel and earing a hissing noise in the engine bay and, most of the time, near the charcoal canister.
The charcoal canister is a part of the EVAP system because the fresh gas go into to e heated and mix to the unburned gas. In this carcoal canister, you have valves, 7 hoses or more and are located above the muffler and, some time, in the engine bay ; https://www.amazon.ca/Dorman-911-636-Evaporative-Emissions-Charcoal/dp/B00TEFLRBI/ref=asc_df_B00TEFLRBI/?tag=googleshopc0c-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=292998720629&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=8484413007880589063&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9000255&hvtargid=pla-493651298103&psc=1. So you might need to inspect your car while the engine run and performing some tests. Do no run your car while people walk by, It’s unsafe. Speaking of unsafe, use a cigar holder when you spray smoke arroud. The EVAP can leak gas.As this has gone on, I’ve noticed another circumstance. She hasn’t died while running(I cringe typing that – knocking on wood), but twice since I last posted, after shutting the engine down to pop into somewhere for only a few minutes, I came back out to a no-start condition. Engine turns over, but per previously mentioned behavior, won’t catch and I have to wait several minutes until she starts.
HOWEVER – I now have a test/result set of a whole two times(second was tonight, Tues) that if I try starting with the throttle full open[gas pedal floored] once, maybe twice; let it rest for a minute – she’ll start normally; not even extra lights. FYI: The “full throttle” attempts don’t fire at all, just the engine turning over. The “working” [no gas pedal] start afterwards starts normally with no notable hesitation. She ran true for the 30+ miles home including another stop.
One last MAYBE symptom – when faced with a ‘mystery/ghost’ failure, we all start getting over-sensitive to anything odd; could be nothing, but… When I last was driving the previous Friday, I noticed that when at idle she was pulsing (long after coming to temp, running errands, multiple stops), which she’s never does, and wasn’t doing today. I had no stalls or starting issues that day.
Ok, you brains bigger than mine; Any ideas?
Much appreciated,
JDIt’s seem you have many problem. The EVAP can be the cause. You need to have an engine air tight everywhere. But I never saw a engine stall at 60 miles an hour with an EVAP system. The EVAP system use the charcoal canister and valve an are often located above the muffler. This part cost 2500 us$. An alternator problem will cause a car to shut off at any speed, but you will see the battery came slowly on the dash. None the less, a bad fuel and air mixture can cause an engine to stall. But at this point, you will be able to smell fuel and you will spend nearly 2 the amount of gas that the car maker said It use. For the stall engine, that can be cause by a piston that knock because the piston ring is too far from the cylinder wall. A tranny cooler (radiator) is perfect to keep your transmission alive for a long time if you drive in hot climate (0 to 50 degrees Celsius). For you seat heater, you need to check the fuse and the relay that operate them. A relay might be the cause of you seat heater. A lot of current to to heat your seat.
For the idle pulsating, you might need to clean your idle bypass air intake with throttle cleaner and doing at the garage a professional injector cleaner.
I highly doubt your EVAP system light has to do anything with this. Honda/Acuras of your Era always have an issue with those solenoids.
May be crazy. but ensure you have a good strong battery and your battery connections are clean and tight. A 12.6v battery is just good enough a 12.4v battery is 50% discharged.
These intermittent issues are a pain and may ultimately require system monitoring with a scan tool/labscope when the problem occurs to narrow down the issue. Simply put. For some reason, spark or fuel is not being delivered at some times, and others times it is.
– Good luck
-Karl
Thanks Karl (love the avatar, BTW),
I’m guessing the EVAP code isn’t related; I can’t remember the OBD code specifically at the moment but as you mentioned it’s the one related to the solenoid valve. I only mentioned it originally since the CEL was already on, but was hoping someone would know the significance of the trifecta of “Check Engine”, “VCS” and “Slip” light being thrown simultaneously.Maybe if I’m lucky Santa will leave enough cash for one of those nifty BT scan tools that can monitor diagnostics through an app.
Plasmide56,
I’m still doubtful – though no expert – that the EVAP failure is the issue. IIRC, the code is because the canister valve isn’t opening to clear the vapors, so no vacuum leak would be present( I may look into replacing/rebuilding it in the spring).Electrical system has been solid(knock on wood) – always turns over strong regardless of conditions.
I check mileage every fill-up, she’s been steady at 25mpg +/- 0.5mpg from the start, even with the way I drive.
Already have plans to add a tranny cooler, if for nothing more than help the POS trans live a little longer.
Dollars-to-donuts the seat heater is a broken/burnt out section on the heater wire. Common enough. Will just need to pull the seat, remove the bottom seat cover and find the scorch mark that was under my ass. But as the bottom seat cover is in rough shape, I’d rather have a replacement cover before tackling that job. Good news is that the driver’s and passenger’s seat covers are exactly the same, so I hope to score a decent used pass. side one for cheap to do the job.
I’ll keep the idle air bypass cleaning in mind if it shows up again.
Thanks guys! Keep the ideas coming!
JDhanks or the detail feedback. I love It. Especially that you take your time on your side to investigate all the ideas we gave to you and especially the ideas you had during the inspection. Better knowing perfectly your car, then repair the car and keep it for a long time. So you keep your money in your pocket by driving a reliable car that you have fixed.
I’d forgotten until recently I’d posted about this here, although I solved the problem some time later which is now long ago. That said, I felt I should close this out with the answer, which was two-fold. First, I discovered that the contacts on the ignition switch were a bit corroded and losing connection. First attempt I pulled the unit, cleaned/burnished the contacts(little tricky, but not awful) reassembled and had noticeable improvement; yet the problem remained. Replaced ignition switch unit- further improvement(i.e. dying even less often); yet problem still remained. Finally found the other half of the issue, the frakking main relay unit, as of course covered by our hero Eric years ago(2009- He’s so cute!! Though I think he looks more ‘handsome’ now.) in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viIZ8k60awY
Just re-soldered all the connections, and it’s been perfect ever since. It’s entirely possible I didn’t need to replace the ignition switch and the cleaning/burnishing of the contacts on the old unit would have been enough, making this a “free” repair, but oh well. It’s fixed, it’s done, on to the next adventure.Good luck to future folks searching for the answer to this problem.
P.S. – I’m a professional solder-jockey. It’s obvious Eric is not, & has never claimed to be(he has other talents ‘a plenty). If you do find yourself wanting/needing to do some soldering/re-soldering, please take the time to review a few basic soldering tutorials to ensure your best chance of success in your endeavor.
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